


The Hour of the Wolf

by Nerdytshirt (GreyHoodie)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, au after season 7, copious crying and hugging, first fic here goes nothing, mix of book and show canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-01-09 22:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12285657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyHoodie/pseuds/Nerdytshirt
Summary: "I know," said Jon. It had to be Jon, older and more scarred than Ned had ever seen him, older than year that had passed since they parted could have aged him, but there was no other explanation.  "I know. You were dead, and now you're not. Bran brought you back. And I'm sorry, but he needs you right now, so you the how and why of it are going to have to wait."Ned Stark dies in Kings Landing - and then finds himself alive in a place he wishes were Hell. His children have aged years in what to him was a matter of moments, and Ned finds that Bran resurrected him to foil the plan of a creature he thought only existed in legend. Two of his children are dead, and those that live have survived by changing in ways that he would have imagined even in his nightmares. That, and the Long Night is upon them all.Or, alternatively: Bran Hijacks the Night King's Resurrection Scheme, and Ned Stark Reacts to GoT Seasons 2-7.





	1. Deep roots are not reached by the frost

**Author's Note:**

> The hour of the wolf is a common way in Westeros to refer to the blackest hour of the night. I thought the title doubly appropriate.
> 
> “So long as I am your king, treason shall never go unpunished. Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!”  
> \- George R. R. Martin, , _A Game of Thrones_

_That's my sword._  

It was not a comforting thought.

Then the guards wrenched his head forward roughly, and Ned didn't have the chance to see Ser Illyn don the black executioner's cowl. He gasped in pain as his wounded leg jolted against the rough marble before Baelor's sept, burning feverishly in the filthy cast despite the scant milk-of-the-poppy they'd given him. The crowd bayed for his blood, but over the din Ned heard Sansa screaming " _Papa, Papa!",_ and all he could see was the empty space at Baelor's feet where Arya had stood. He forced his eyes away and turned his gaze to the ground- best that no-one follow his line of sight to his daughter. _Maybe she will survive this._ Perhaps both would. Perhaps both of his great lies to the realm wouldn't be for naught. Perhaps he would have to wait long for his family to join him.

Ned would not to use his last moments to contemplate otherwise.

A gentle breeze, too weak to break the stifling heat blew past his ear as Ser Illyn Payne's shadow fell over the stones in front of him. _Gods protect my children_. Steel scraped against a scabbard. _"Father,"_ the wind whispered to him. The sound was faint over the roar of the crowd and Sansa's screaming.

And then it was replaced by silence as hundreds of men and women held their breath at once. Ice sang through the air, so quick there was no time for pain, no time for anything, except-

" _Father!"_  

The sound rang against his ears, reverberating like a bell. It was the only sound there was, the only thing there was- he felt nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing but Bran's voice, and then a hand gripped his suddenly tangible wrist, and Ned collapsed forward into the snow.

Bran released his wrist- it was his arm that had pulled him out of that- nothingness. Ned clutched at his neck. His fingers found a scar there, a deep barely-healed thing, but healed all the same. _It was real._ He began shaking violently. _He beheaded me._ Blackness threatened to creep in at the edges of his vision. He couldn't _breathe-_

"Easy!" Someone- Jon?- grasped his shoulders and steadied him. He put a heavy fur cloak over his shoulders, "Easy."

"Jon. How- I don't-"

"I know," said Jon. It had to be Jon, older and more scarred than Ned had ever seen him, older than year that had passed since they parted could have aged him, but there was no other explanation.  "I know. You were dead, and now you're not. Bran brought you back. And I'm sorry, but he needs you right now, so you the how and why of it are going to have to wait." His eyes shone bright with tears, and his tone was authoritative, yet strangely empathetic.

Jon pulled him to this feet, but did no more, seeming to realize that Ned needed space. He struggled to fight off his panic attack- those, he was no stranger to, after Robert's Rebellion, and even sixteen years later they crept up on him on rare occasions. Dimly, he noted his leg no longer pained him, nor did the wound on his brow. Suddenly, he staggered back as another body slammed into his, nearly knocking the wind out of him. Ned made to defend himself… and then froze as he realized who it was.

"Arya?" he breathed. Could his scrappy, fierce little girl have turned into this young woman?   She nodded into his chest and let out a sob. "Arya!" Ned threw himself into her embrace, holding her tight. "I saw you standing by the Baelor's statue, " he said shakily. _Oh thank the Gods, she's safe._ "I told Yoren to look there…"

She pulled away, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Arya, too, was older, and looked more like Lyanna than ever, but for her hair, which was styled in a half-bun like his own.  She was wearing armor, he noticed- just boiled leather, better for speed and agility but lacking the protection of plate, and that skinny Bravos blade was still at her hip. "He got me out of the city," she confirmed.

He took a deep breath, dreading the answer to his next question. "And your sister? 

"She…she survived." Arya told him after a moment's hesitation. "She's safe at home in Winterfell." Something in Arya's voice made him fear the rest of that story, but there would be time for explanations later. His daughters were safe; that was all that mattered. HIs panic subsided.

Or at least it did, until Ned looked around, and realized that his lies had earned him a place in Hell.

They were standing in a grove of nine heart trees that grew in a rough circle, their carved eyes and mouths dripping with red sap that shone hard as rubies. Bran knelt in front of the nearest with a crimson-stained hand pressed to the trunk. Pale moonlight lit the forest floor unevenly as the naked branches rasped against each other like skeletal fingers in the chill wind. The dark of the ancient, gnarled woods beyond seemed a pregnant, malicious thing, surrounding them as hunters would corner a lone wolf.

Ned had always been able to feel the presence of the gods in the weirwoods, steadfast and eternal, and he often found it peaceful, if not entirely comforting. At the center of so many, he should have felt like he stood on hallowed ground.

But this place, once holy, had been defiled.

The first body lay in the snow not two paces from Bran. It was long dead. Rotting meat hung in strips from its bones. The second was fresher, though still dead for some time. There were eight in total, men and women both in various stages of decay. One, he noticed with a shudder, was missing a cloak, and he fought the urge to throw his from his shoulders- it was much too cold to be having qualms. A chill ran through him, and he could not hide the mute horror that came over him. _What are my children doing here amidst this…massacre?_ Or, failing that, why had the Wildlings come here, or been dragged here, to die- for they could not have died at the same time, that much was evident, even in the blanketing darkness.

"We're about an hour's ride from Castle Black. Those attacked us shortly after we arrived," said Arya, following his gaze.

Ned tried futilely to suppress his unease. He felt as if he had been thrust into a nightmare, able to know that his surroundings were _wrong_ but unable to change any of them. And here, in the cold blackness of the untamed wood, it was too easy to imagine she was telling the truth. "But they must have died months ago!"

"So did you," said Bran without looking back at him. The knowing weight of his words, combined with the implication they held, shocked him. _That's not possible._ Even though Bran was facing the heart tree, Ned couldn't shake the eerie feeling that his son was staring at him. "Most of the dead don't come back so cleanly."

Jon strode forward to kneel in the snow beside him. "How much time do you need?"

"I don't know," said Bran. Jon frowned. "She'll be harder to find than Father. She's not of a magic bloodline."

"Who is? Who else are you bringing back? " Ned demanded in a voice so shaken he scarcely recognized it.  Men should not keep walking after they die, he wanted to say. Whatever it was that his children were doing, it went against all the laws of nature, and if he knew the way he would have thrown Bran over his shoulder and ran back to Castle Black in that instant.

"Mother."

Bran's answer was a knife in his gut. _No. Not Catelyn, not my Cat, she was in the North, or in the Eyrie…_  His wife was not dead. He would not believe it. He could not. Yet a small voice in his head whispered, _You did not believe Father and Brandon were dead either._  

Jon interrupted his grief-stricken thoughts. "We'll give you as much time as we can," he said. Then he stripped off one of his gloves and placed a hand on the weirwood's carved mouth, grimacing. When he pulled away, Ned saw fresh blood mingle with the heart tree's red sap.  _"The First Men sacrificed to the Old Gods of the weirwoods,"_ Old Nan had told him once on an evening long, long ago, when he and Benjen had been young enough to believe such things, " _They brought their captives before the heart trees and slit their throats to the bone, so the roots could drink the blood of men." Blood magic,_ Ned thought, and felt sick. 

"The dead will be here soon," said Jon grimly, putting his glove back on. He reached over to an odd sword made of black cut stone that leaned against the heart tree, stood up, and placed it in Ned's hand. 

"The dead."  Ned looked down at the blade he held, and back to the bodies littering the ground. Rotting, but at different paces. If he had not died, for that was the terrible truth he had to face, Ned would have tried to laugh and call his children mad. He remembered the deserter who he _had_ taken for a madman, fleeing south from ancient terrors. A new wave of dread washed over him, and his throat went dry as his heart galloped wildly in his chest.

"This is the Long Night," said Jon. "The Others march south with an army of dead men, and if the living are to stand a chance, we'll need every sword we can get. Use that one - I brought in case any of us," he spread his hand to indicate himself, Arya, and a tall woman in plate-mail standing at the edge of circle he hadn't noticed before, "lost one of our weapons."

_The Others have never existed outside of children's tales,_ Ned wanted to say, but there was no denying the grim truth in Jon's eyes. _Gods be good, I've left the lion's den only to enter Hell._

"Castle Black. We can run there, send for aid," Ned tried. He looked back at Bran, whose face was taught with concentration, his shattered legs splayed out sickly underneath him. _He_ _can not survive any fight._  

"Castle Black is fallen," Jon told him. "The Brothers retreated south over a month ago."

Ned nodded numbly and gripped the sword more firmly, and shoved down his awareness of his ignorance. When a sword was placed in your hand with no explanation other than the enemy was near, your questions did not matter. He felt the familiar sick anticipation, then, the apprehension of waiting on the edge of a battle that he couldn't escape. Worse, now, than it ever was during the rebellion-then, his children had not been in the thick of it. _I will not let my children die._ The same thought he'd been repeating since Varys had visited him in his cell. The gods had no eyes or ears down South, but now with nine heart trees around him, perhaps they would hear him _. Protect my children,_ he prayed, and hoped more than ever before that someone was listening.

One of the corpses wore armor of boiled leather, he donned it with the ingrained swiftness Robert's Rebellion had taught him. It was a mechanical routine, and Ned tried to let his body take control of his fearful mind. He couldn't find a helm, but there was no help for that now. Quickly, he pulled on a pair of wool trousers as well, swallowing his distaste - the cold was growing fiercer, perceptively so. He steadied himself and tested the weight of the sword. It was not Ice, but its craftsmanship was exquisite nonetheless.

Arya took up a position to his left, her side facing out in the Braavosi style, and unsheathed Needle- which he noted with surprise now caught the moonlight along ripples in the blade that could only come from Valyrian steel. He prayed to the Old Gods and the New that she'd improved with that skinny blade of hers. She'd "died" at least five times in the last "dancing" practice he'd stepped in on _._ "We should have lit fires," she said, "A ring around the heart trees would have at least slowed them down." She gave Jon a look that said "I-told-you-so". _Some things,_ Ned thought, _never change._

"That would have drawn them right to us," said Jon firmly. "The whole point of sending Rhaegal away was to draw them off." _Who's Rhaegal?_

"How long until he returns?" asked the tall woman. Her blade was already out. Some part of Ned thought it looked familiar, but there was no time to dwell on that now.

"A few minutes, maybe," said Jon.  Jon hefted a sword of dragonsteel in front of him and completed their half-circle with the heart tree's massive trunk to their back. "Stay close to Bran. They want him alive, so they most likely won't use archers- too worried about missing and hitting him. Don't let them draw you out, wait for their charge. Focus on the Walkers-killing them will thin out their numbers." He directed his last statement towards Ned. Jon issued the orders with the tone of an experienced commander, and Ned was torn between pride and dismay that he had become one so young. He and turned his gaze back to the darkened forest, and waited for the enemy to arrive.

Their harsh breathing was the only sound that broke the night's oppressive stillness. Cold sweat dripped down his neck and froze against his skin. Ned thought of the Tower of Joy, of the fear he'd felt when they had been seven against three, and how now they were only four. He looked at Arya, and thought of how he'd thrown his honor into the wind for the sake of his daughters. He looked at Jon, and thought of how Lyanna had begged him as she lay dying in a bed of blood. _Promise me Ned._ He'd failed them both.

Branches snapped in the foreboding darkness like brittle bones, far off, but moving closer. Ned's breath caught in his throat. He saw their eyes, then, pinpricks of cold fire glowing eerily in the night, blue as ice and winter roses. _Gods be good, there must be an entire host of them._ Pale shapes moved through the trees, too distant to be distinct and yet more terrifying even than the sound of bodies tearing through the undergrowth behind him. _Gods protect my children._

One by one, the dead emerged into the scant moonlight. In that moment, Ned could not even pray, his mind flooded with a primal fear that sunk with the cold into his bones. Corpses fresh and rotting and frozen, skeletal figures whose flesh hung like threadbare rags from yellowed bones, blood-spattered men and women and children, _children,_ some carrying weapons in black hands bloated with pooled blood, some _pulling_ weapons from their putrid flesh, marched to the edge of the grove and halted there, waiting. The Others walked amongst them to the front of the force, cutting through the army like knives through soft flesh, gaunt features regarding them with an alien, cool indifference. Even the dead were a more welcome sight than those figures. Ned saw his ragged breaths frost in the air. None came from the wights.

They were four, facing tens. The Other across the grove appraised each of them in turn, and fixed its gaze upon Jon. For a breath, neither side moved. Then the Other raised its arm toward them. _Now it ends,_ Ned thought.

And the dead charged. 

In an instant they were upon them, screeching through dry throats. There was no time to think, just react, and Ned did so. His obsidian sword slipped past the first wight's swing at his throat and into its chest as it ran wildly towards him; it collapsed when the blade pierced its skin, but Ned was already turning away from it, nearly stumbling in the  thick snow, whirling to meet the next as it tried to force its way through. The sound of steel rang in his ears like a bell over the discord of the screaming dead. The dead man's axe deflected his blow, he felt the impact throughout his whole arm- Ned kicked it and stabbed it in the gut, elbowing another as he pulled his sword out and swung it in an arc to cut through the torso of the rotting woman clawing for him with frost-bitten hands. And the next, and the next, his sword slipping easily through soft, rotted flesh, until bodies surrounded him, and yet the wights still came. 

They attacked with no strategy, little skill, and even less regard for their continued non-existence, and their numbers where overwhelming. A roughly-made spear grazed a cut into his bicep as he beheaded the blue-eyed corpse of a Night's Watchman. Ned felt ice radiating at his side, and half-turned to see Jon raise his sword with a yell just before a White Walker's blow would have severed his neck. _Promise me._ Ned cut down a starved boy that was thrusting a knife at his belly, trying to fight his way to Jon; he'd thought he'd been afraid before but that was nothing, _nothing,_ compared to the sheer terror he felt watching his boy face that _thing_ -

It shattered into crystalline shards, and dead men in front of him collapsed. Ned gasped in relief, stunned…and then felt bony fingers grasp his shoulder, felt fetid breath and a heard a cracked shriek in his ear, and he turned around, struggling against it, to find he didn't need to. Arya was there, her Needle pierced into the wight's eye.

The second wave was upon them. He hacked at them as they made another attempt for the heart tree, Arya fighting at his side. She _danced_. His daughter weaved in and out of the dead, swift as a deer, flipping over one as it lunged for her and thrusting into its unguarded back. Blocking a blow from his right, Ned saw Jon fighting in tandem with the woman, who cut down a skeletal shadowcat mid-leap, her face contorted with fear. They were less graceful than Arya, perhaps, but no less fierce, and both of them wielded their swords with skill to rival the Sword of Morning himself.

A thought struck him then, of how at the Tower of Joy they had been seven facing three, but only two had ridden home alive. If had been these three, he knew with dreadful certainty, those two would not have been himself and Howland Reed. _And still it might not be enough_. Yet more corpses emerge from the trees, and bleakness threatened to swallow him whole. His concentration broke, and a rusted sword pierced his leg. Thankfully, it was not deep, but  another few inches and he could have been hamstrung. He crushed its bare skull under his foot in alarm as a rotting woman met his blade, screeching at him with bared teeth.

Beside him, Jon was shouting as he crossed blades. "Hold the line! He's close!" Whoever was coming, Ned thought , had best come with fifty men. It was a foolish hope. Arya danced with an Other, dodging its sword of ice with desperation and quickness he'd never seen; she whirled around its lunge and slit its throat, her face cut by flying ice as it flew apart, but more wights took its place. _I will not let my children die,_ Ned thought desperately, but he could no longer believe it.

And then he heard the roar.

The dragon dove from the sky like lightning meeting the earth, landing outside the glade, crushing trees underneath it, and lighting the night with blessed, _blessed_ flame. A jaw nearly half Ned's height snapped up an Other, tearing its torso in two. The green scales on its mighty tail gleamed in the firelight as it whipped across the dead, sending them flying, and engulfed the giant in a pillar of fire. Suddenly, the wights turned away from him.  They had found a more pressing target. 

Ned laughed in amazement, hope bubbling up from his chest. It was a miracle beyond explanation, a dragon, fighting _for_ them…and then realization struck him like an arrow. _No,_ he thought, and looked at Jon in disbelief and awestruck wonder. His son was entirely focused on his attackers, intent on his survival and nothing else, but _…_  

_Oh Lya, you would be so proud of our boy._

Trying desperately not to lose focus on the stragglers that remained by the heart tree, Ned watched as the dragon took flight with a cry loud that rose above the din of horde and reverberated through the forest, shaking the trees. The canopy's thick branches could not hide the bursts of heat and flame above them. In an instant, the forest was alight.

Wights shrieked as they turned to charred ash in the inferno, their dead flesh catching like oil. Some stumbled towards them as they burned; Ned dodged flaming bodies as they fought with no less ferocity despite how they're tattered furs turned were consumed and their flesh blistered from their bones. Soon a blaze surrounded the whole grove.

For a breath, Ned thought they would win. "It's cut us off!"  A dozen wights remained in the clearing, but Ned was near-giddy with hope. They fell like flies before them, and in minutes only the living remained.

Jon yelled a reply. He was bleeding from a cut on his brow, and covered in gore and rancid meat. Ned could only imagine what he looked like himself.  He knelt at Bran's side, and Ned was quick to follow.  Bran was muttering to himself quietly under his breath. Jon shook his shoulders. "Bran!"

Bran's breath came, shallow gasps, and a painful-looking intensity was written across his face. "She can't hear me."

Jon was not in the mood for explanations. "If we stay here the Night King will gain another dragon!" he insisted frantically.

Bran took a deep, shaky breath. "Mother? Mother you need to come with me." He was shivering, exhausted, barely able to support his own head.

"Your Grace!" Ned turned, surprised, to the tall woman. She pointed a gauntleted finger to the far side of the clearing, where otherworldly figures gathered beyond the flickering blaze, pale even through the orange light of the flames. Slowly, slowly, the fire was dying.

Ned's heart nearly stopped. "Your mother wanted you to live, Bran!" He made to pick up his son and run, though he realized the fire left him with nowhere to go. Arya and Jon grabbed his collar and wrist, holding him back, and he struggled against them. 

"Mother please," begged Bran, "me and Arya and Father are all going to die-" and then he collapsed forward.

"Bran!" Arya and Jon released him in surprise, but Jon was closer. He pulled Bran to his chest, tore off his glove and checked his pulse. "He's alive," he announced, but anxiety shadowed his features.

Suddenly, the heart tree groaned. The white wood creaked and moaned as it warped, twisting and growing with unnatural speed. Bark bulged and pulled back on itself, and crimson sap ran down it in paths like veins. _Exactly_ like veins, Ned realized with mounting unease. The wood morphed like potters' clay, forming into the shape of a woman in an elegant yet practical gown. The crimson sap coloring her blood-red hair muted into a beautiful auburn, and Ned gasped.

"Cat?" he breathed.

Cat, and it was Cat, not a sculpture or a carving, but Catelyn, _his_ Catelyn, gasped. She broke free of the tree and fell into his arms, shaking with adrenaline and fury, tears running down her cheeks.

"Ned?" she said. She threw her arms around him and sobbed into his chest. "Oh Ned! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I failed him, and then I heard Bran calling and he said he was in danger…"

As gently as he could, he unwrapped her arms from around his neck. Ned couldn't guess who she what she referred to, but it pained him not to comfort her. "Later, Cat," he said as he tried to keep his voice from breaking, "get behind me."

"Ned-" she stopped, horror-stricken, as she saw the bodies piled around them. He pushed her roughly behind him, raising his sword. The fire across the clearing was almost low enough to walk through and cold emanated from the other side-

-the dragon broke through the blood-red canopy with an earth-shattering roar. Ned grabbed his wife and shielded her with his body as pale branches rained down around them. The beast was massive, barely big enough to fit in the clearing, its wings tucked against its side. Firelight danced where it caught its green scales. Catelyn screamed hoarsely.  The dragon lowered its massive head to them, baring razor-sharp teeth, and fixed the group with a molten gaze that held far too much intelligence for an ordinary beast. _This was the creature that brought Torrhen Stark to his knees_ , Ned thought, _And it is on our side._

Jon was the first to move. He sprinted towards it, nearly stumbling over the corpses, carrying Bran over his shoulder. For one terrifying a breath when Ned feared it would engulf him in flame, and then Jon grasped the spikes of horn along its neck, and mounted it. When he looked up and saw them all frozen in shock, he motioned for them to follow. "Get on!"

They ran. 

"Arya, you first," Ned said as they reached its side, and thanked all the gods, Old and New, when for once in her life she obeyed without question. Jon paused strapping Bran into some kind of saddle and reached a hand down to help her up. The dragon- Rhaegal?- growled quietly back in its throat as she did, and Ned had to swallow his fear. This was surely madness, but they had no other choice.

Cat was next, too shocked to do anything but allow the tall woman assist her up. Her eyes widened in recognition - how did they know each other? The female warrior motioned with her blade for him to climb on, guarding his back as he did.

Trembling, Ned grasped one of the boney spikes and clambered on. Powerful muscles rippled beneath him as he took a place behind his wife, grasping the spikes so hard his hands turned white. He could feel the heat of its scales, warm as bricks baking beneath a hot summer sun. Catelyn was shaking like a leaf. So was he, Ned realized. Across the clearing, the Others began to march through the fire, raising crystalline swords and spears. Then the lady night swung up behind them, and the dragon began to move.

His wings beat once, twice, unable to extend fully in the grotto. Ned grasped with his knees as it reared up and lifted unsteadily from the ground. A moment, and he was looking down at the body-strewn clearing, now flooded with wights readying spears and bows.

"Hold on!" John yelled back at them. He leaned protectively over Bran's unconscious form, with no more apprehension than he would have riding a horse. And then they where flying.

Higher and higher they rose, sickeningly far from the ground, leaving the weirwoods behind them. Ned gripped the dragon's back with legs, trying not to consider how far he would fall. _Wolves should stay on the ground,_ he thought.

Wights littered the forest like ants over carrion. Rhaegal banked, nearly throwing him off, dodging a volley of arrows. Many did not even miss, just bounced off his hide. Others hissed as they sailed by. _Any one of those could have killed us._ The Wall loomed before them, massive and ancient. _We're free,_ Ned thought, but then there was a sickening _thud,_ and the dragon shook, roaring in pain. They began to sink, Ned held on for his life…but Rhaegal steadied himself, though his motions seemed stiffer than before. Jon cheered in triumph and relief swept over him.

They left the Wall behind. Wind rushed around them, ruffling his hair and tearing at his cloak. Below, the dead amassed over the plains of the Gift. Ned's mouth dropped open in horror. There must have been hundreds of them, thousands. There had been no escape over ground, he realized, and thanked the gods that his family was safe. 

"Bran's alright," Jon yelled from up front, "I think he's collapsed from exhaustion, but he's not hurt." Ned felt some of the tension leave his body.

"Rickon," said Catelyn over the wind, "What about Rickon?"

Ned frowned. "Rickon wasn't with us."

"He was supposed to have died with Bran," Catelyn said shakily. He didn't have to face her to know that she was crying. "If Bran's alive then Rickon-"

"Rickon's dead," said Jon hoarsely, "Ramsay Bolton…" He swallowed. His eyes were haunted, his face grieved and guilty beyond measure. "I tried to save him. I failed," Jon finished, voice breaking .

Cold washed over him like he'd been plunged into a frozen lake. _No._ Rickon was just a child, he'd was harmless, he had been safe in Winterfell. Before him, his wife's shoulders shook. He remembered Rickon begging him not to leave, promising that he'd be good and listen to Maester Luwin and eat all of his greens and never be bad ever again, _promise,_ if only Ned wouldn't leave. He'd hugged his son and patted his back, telling him to be brave and to practice his letters so Ned could write him every week, and that he would see him again next summer. He would never get the chance, he realized numbly, and tears clouded his vision. 

Arya spoke up. "Sansa's in Winterfell. She's safe," she said gently, "But Robb…"

"I watched them kill him," said Cat hoarsely. "I'm _sorry,_ Ned."

He couldn't breathe. "It's not your fault." It was his. He never should have left Winterfell. "It's not your fault, Cat," he repeated numbly, but she only shook her head in denial. Despair wrapped him like a cloak, thick and clawing. _You still have a son and two daughters,_ he wanted to tell her, but grief killed the words in his throat. _I'll never see them again._

Below them, the land lay spread out like a shimmering tapestry, silvery-white in the moonlight, dappled here and there with moving figures. Stars shone in an indigo sky. It was beautiful.

He did not look for long. Instead, Ned rested his brow against his wife's shoulder, and he wept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there wasn't more actual character interaction this chapter- that will have to wait for next time. Hopefully, the fight didn't come off as gratuitous or drag on. I've never written one before (or written fic before), but I did my best. I figured that a grove of nine heart trees might be amongst the most magical places in Westeros for Bran to do his thing, and since its behind enemy lines, well...
> 
> Aforementioned character interaction, however, I looking forward to, because it's the real reason why I've written this fic. I've always wondered what Ned would think of his children now- Jon a king, now aware of his heritage, Sansa a Lady and political mastermind, Arya an assassin, and Bran as the Three Eyed Raven. This fic has been in the back of my mind for, I dunno, over a year at least, and I finally decided to try my hand at writing. (I know that someone else is doing something similar atm, but it honestly is a coincidence.) Feedback is welcome! I have no idea what I am doing and would love any constructive critism or compliments you send my way.
> 
> In the next chapter:  
> For all that he'd imagined this moment, for all that he'd poured over each and every possible scenario on a hundred sleepless nights, Ned found that he did not know what to say.
> 
> "Is that how you thought of me?" said Jon. His eyes filled with tears. "As Jaehaerys Targaryen?"
> 
> Ned's heart twisted. Behind him, Catelyn gasped in shock. "No," he said quietly, "No. I don't."


	2. Those Who Wandered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned has a much needed conversation with Jon, and then learns what his wife and children have been up to after his death. His children's journeys home were long ones, and needless to say, do not make for pleasant tales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, sorry for being so late with updating! Things got kind of hectic for me after I first posted, and I didn't have much time to write for a while. Hopefully the length will make up for it? I guess I don't know how to write short chapters.
> 
> Second, the response to this fic has absolutely blown me away. I only imagined it getting as many kudos, bookmarks, and comments as its gotten in my wildest dreams, so thank you so much for reading.
> 
> This chapter has a conversation that I've been obsessing over the details of for months, so I hope that you guys enjoy reading it. And some necessary infodumping. Sorry about that. More fun stuff to come next chapter.

**** Ned wasn't sure how long they flew. Perhaps and hour, perhaps two or three, until the dead were far behind them. Time moved strangely after the revelation of his sons' deaths. Mostly, he just felt numb, and the only thing Ned was certain of was that he needed to see that Sansa was stafe. 

After a time, Jon had the dragon land on an empty, snow-covered field near a small copse of barren trees. "We'll rest here," he announced, "Rhaegal's starting to flag, and I want him seen to before we go any further." The dragon seemed to dislike this comment, and let out a quiet, rumbling growl of protest. Perhaps it (he?) didn't appreciate his weakness being brought to light. Jon dismounted carrying his brother in his arms, and laid Bran down gently in the snow, tucking in the cloak around him. 

Ned followed with shaky feet, while Arya slid off more gracefully and was followed by Cat, who embraced their daughter like she was holding on to a lifeline. Arya's face was buried in her neck, and Catelyn began murmuring comforting words into her ear. It was touching to watch, and Ned decided to give his wife her moment alone- he'd already had his brief reunion by the heart tree. Instead of joining them, Ned knelt down near Jon and Bran. He wasn't quite at ease until he saw the steady rise and fall of Bran's chest. Once reassured, he began to turn to Jon, intent upon asking if they were in a safe position or if _he_ had any injuries that needed attention, but Jon stalked away quickly towards the trees, declaring he would start a fire. 

Before he could follow, Catelyn pulled him into a tight embrace. "I don't pretend to understand where we are or how we're here. But I thank the Seven for giving you back to me," she said, and kissed him firmly and sweetly, not with lust or need but slowly and gently, as if she were memorizing the feel of his lips. Her own were chapped and warm, and the kiss was more comforting that it had any right to be. 

Ned pulled away gently, and brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. She looked frightful. To his horror, a scar ran across her neck, red and angry, and his stomach turned when he realized its cause. Cat’s beautiful hair was hopelessly tangled in the wind, her eyes were puffy and red, and she looked more tired than he'd ever seen her. But apart form his children, she was the most welcome sight Ned had seen in weeks.

He heard a hitch of breath behind him. Arya was still standing nearby, struggling (and failing) to keep her emotions in check. "Come here."

She lunged towards their open arms, trying to embrace him and Cat both at once. They complied gladly, holding her close. "I thought we'd never be all together again," she told them helplessly _. We still won't_ Ned thought, but that thought and the overwhelming grief that followed was not needed right now. He tried to push it aside and wiped the tears from Arya's cheek. This was not a dream, or a mad hallucination from the black cells- his wife and daughter were solid are real beside him, his son- now his youngest- slept at their feet, while his now-eldest (in all the ways that mattered, if not by blood) could be heard gathering firewood. Sansa was safe in Winterfell. That was all that mattered. It had to be.

"We'll never leave you again," swore Catelyn, squeezing Arya more tightly. Ned believed her. She then pulled away slightly, keeping her hands on Arya's shoulders, studied their daughter, and smiled. It was a genuine smile, but something in Cat's face said that she wished they were reuniting in different circumstances. Ned found it hard to disagree. Arya grinned back, but despite her current happiness he saw a shadow pass over her eyes. 

His wife turned her attention to the lady knight that stood nearby, giving them space. A heartwarming, satisfied grin touched the woman's face, and there were tears in her eyes as well, like she had been hoping for this moment for years, yet never fully expected it to pass. "This is Lady Brienne of Tarth," Catelyn told him. "We owe her our thanks for bringing Arya back to us.” 

"My Lady." Lady Brienne bowed deeply. The smile faded from her face. When she spoke, her tone was regretful. "I…your gratitude is unnecessary. I failed you. Arya brought herself home, and I was…unable to help Lady Sansa as much as I wished. But I serve them now as their sworn shield."

“Yet I count your oath fulfilled, all the same,” said Catelyn sincerely, and glanced at Arya, "for continuing to protect my daughter.” She looked as if she wanted to ask something - maybe why it was necessary to protect Arya _here,_ rather than behind the relative safety of Winterfell's walls- but stopped herself. Brienne, meanwhile, looked like Catelyn had given her the entire world. This, Ned realized, was a woman that kept her oaths as sacred- a rare quality, he’d realized since the goldcloak’s betrayal. He decided he liked her.

The crunch of snow caught Ned's attention, and he looked behind Cat to see Jon, arms full of kindling, standing near the dragon and watching them all with an expression of such _longing_ that it filled Ned’s heart with sadness. Once Jon realized he'd been noticed, however, his face took on a expression of forced blankness. 

He walked forward and interrupted their conversation bydropped the armful of branches at their feet beside Bran. Arya watched her brother with sympathy. Catelyn, on the other hand, looked equal parts irritated at his intrusion and perplexed by his attitude. Jon grabbed a larger piece from the pile and walked over to the dragon, ordered something in a foreign tongue that made it set the branch alight, and marched back to them without speaking, his whole body tense. He thrust his torch into the pile of firewood and walked away just as quickly, not pausing to look at any of them.

And his distance, somehow more so than the presence of the dragon itself, broke through Ned's grief and drove home the full, earth-shaking implication their rescue. 

Jon knew. And no matter how much Ned wished for it, things between them may never be the same again. He could only pray to the Gods that Jon could find it in his heart to forgive him.

“Jon," he called out, but Jon resolutely ignored him. Ned steeled himself, ignored the dragon's disdainful glare, and walked with trepidation to where Jon inspected an over-sized arrow lodged in its side. The dragon turned his head to watch, but to his relief, otherwise did not react. Nedstopped a few paces from Jon, took a deep breath, and prepared to throw sixteen years worth of lies into the wind. 

He tried again. "Jaehaer-"

"Don’t!" Jon said. In an instant he'd whirled around, fists clenched. The word echoed in the empty plain while the betrayed look on his face hit Ned like a blow. The hand he’d been extending towards Jon's shoulder dropped uselessly to his side. They stood there, facing one another. And for all that he'd imagined this moment, for all that he'd poured over each and every possible scenario on a hundred sleepless nights, Ned found that he did not know what to say.

"Is that how you thought of me?" said Jon. His eyes filled with tears. "As Jaehaerys Targaryen?"

Ned's heart twisted. Behind him, Catelyn gasped. "No," Ned said quietly, "No. I don't."

Silence fell again. Ned dared to break it. "How long have you known?" 

“Just over month," Jon said, "Bran told me." He looked away from Ned and beyond him at the sleeping boy."He had a vision. Of how my mother made you promise." Which was astonishing, but of less immediate importance than the rawness of the wound Jon undoubtably felt.

”Robert would have killed you," Ned said. In his mind’s eye Lyanna pleaded with him in a room that smelled of blood and winter roses. His voice shook as he struggled against tears. This conversation had waited sixteen years, but it could no longer. "She loved you dearly, Jon. She knew if Robert learned of your existence-" 

"You don't have to tell me why you did what you did," Jon said shortly, as if he was insulted that Ned even think that needed explaining. His next words would have lifted Ned's heart, if they were not spoken so bitterly. "I know I'm alive because of you. You gave me a childhood and a family, even if I was never really one of you." 

"I made you a bastard," Ned said, and Jon flinched. He found he couldn't bear Jon's understanding or forgiveness, not when he remembered all of the times Jon had run to him because the servants called him names, all of the disdain Jon had suffered for his assuredly “ill-born, sinful nature”, every time he found his son hiding because he didn't want Catelyn to see his tears. "You’re my sister's son, and I let you be scorned and shamed, when you were born to sit on the Iron Throne. _I'm sorry,_ Jon."

"I don't give a damn about the Iron Throne!" Jon cried hoarsely, his shoulders shaking with emotion. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “All I wanted, all I _ever_ wanted was to be a Stark. " 

"Jon-"

"I may not have the Stark name, but I have your blood. That’s what you were about to say, wasn't it?”, he cut in, voice breaking. His breath hitched. He spoke like stopping the words was impossible, but sounded as if each pained him. “It's what you always told me. Those _exact_ words. I thought that meant that at least I had a father who cared about me, but now- I realized you’ve _never,_ not _once,_ told me I was your son. I was always Lyanna's to you. Wasn't I."

The grief in his eyes struck Ned to the core with shame. The first part of his accusation was true. Ned had promised himself, long ago, that he would never lie to Jon any more than was necessary- now he realized it was more for his own pride than Jon’s comfort. 

As for the second, the part that pained him the most, that was only a half of the truth. Of _course_ he'd never forgotten Jon was Lya's son- he'd spent countless hours at the heart tree begging for forgiveness, because the more time passed, the more proud Ned became that Jon could be called his. And that thought always came with guilt, because that was so only because of the deaths of his sister and her husband. But Ned never expected- he never thought that Jon would _doubt_ -

"Everyone who I've met knew me because I was Ned Stark's bastard,” Jon continued, "And I hated it. I felt like some, some _stain,_ or a novelty. 'Proof that the honorable Ned Stark is human after all'. But I was, was still _happy_ that you were my father, even if they said I was a traitor's bastard, because you were the best man I've ever known. So I was proud," He choked back a sob, and looked down at his feet, "that I was your son. And now I'm not even that," he finished brokenly. 

Ned's heart shattered. _Oh, my boy,_ he thought. The tears came freely. 

"I wanted you to be," Ned said, and Jon let out a sob. "Gods know I've always wanted you, Jon. I can never forget who your mother and father were. But don't you _ever_ think, not for a moment, that that makes you any less mine." He stepped closer to his son, who stood rooted the spot, unable to move, laid a comforting hand on his trembling shoulder, and lifted Jon’s chin, wet with tears, so he would meet Ned’s eyes.

"Two of my children are dead," he continued. Jon's face twisted in unmistakable guilt at his words. "If by the lies that I built your life upon I have lost another, than I'll accept it as the price I must pay to have kept you alive. But Jon, you've been my son from the moment I left that tower."

Jon shuddered, near swaying. Then he threw himself at Ned, clutched at his shirt, and buried his face into Ned's chest. "Father," he sobbed.

"I'm here," Ned said gently, voice choked with emotion, not bothering to wipe the tears from his eyes. He brought his arms around his son and stroked his hair soothingly like he had when Jon was very, very young. _It doesn't matter how old you are,_ he thought, _you'll always be my boy._ They stayed like that for a long time, Jon taking comfort in his father and Ned taking comfort that Jon would still count him so, until his son had stopped shaking and his breath no longer came in gasps, and Ned's own eyes were dry. 

“Sorry,” Jon said eventually, pulling away, “I thought I’d moved past it, but…”

“You never thought you’d see me again,” Ned finished for him. “And when you did everything came rushing to the surface.”

Jon gave a deep sigh. “Yeah,” he said apologetically.

“I do have a question though,” said Ned. Well, he had many questions, but this one rather stuck out. In fact, its subject was staring at them both quite impatiently- which was _immensely_ intimidating, if he was honest with himself. “Rhaegal?”

Jon gave a small laugh. ”Daenerys Targaryen hatched him, and named him for her brother.”

"She survived then." Ned was relieved. Robert had told him to rescind the order, but Ned thought it had been too late.

Tension came back into Jon's body. The way he closed himself off and tried to wipe he expression from his face was as transparent as it had ever been. _What more could there possibly be, after_ that _, to make him so nervous?,_ Ned wondered. 

After a moment, he had his answer. "She's my wife," Jon said, "I love her." 

_Oh._

There were a lot of things that Ned should have felt at those words. Disgust, perhaps, he would have felt if circumstances were different, though more at himself for hiding Jon's parentage and letting it happen than at Jon for loving the girl. Fear, maybe, that he'd wed someone the Crown had so desired to kill. Instead, heart aching from their reconciliation and his sons’ deaths and shaken by the battle they’d survived, Ned found that both emotions were overshadowed by relief that Jon had found love at the end of the world, even if it was with his aunt. He was discomforted, to be sure, but he would move past it, if Jon was happy. ”Then I'm glad to have gained a daughter."

Jon relaxed, breathed a sigh of relief,and after a moments hesitation, said, ”You’re gaining a grandson as well." 

Ned's heart skipped a beat. “A- a grandson?” 

Jon’s smile was full of affection. "We're naming him Eddarys.” Ned’s vision blurred. For a moment, Jon’s smile faded, and he looked unsure. “Is that…is that al-“

He stopped speaking when Ned pulled him into a tight hug. “I couldn’t be more honored.”

-

As Jon inspected the dragon's wound, Ned returned to sit by the fire where Catelyn sat with her head bowed, Bran's head resting in her lap. She looked up as he approached, shame written over her features. She had been crying. "I-" she began. 

"We'll talk about it later," he told her, and sat down next to her. Somewhere where Jon and Arya couldn't hear. He anticipated the conversation with dread. 

Cat nodded, and to his surprise, she shifted closer to him. She gave a shuddering breath. "You're bleeding.”

Ned supposed he was. "None of the cuts are deep," he reassured her. "I'll have them seen to at Winterfell." At least, that was where he assumed they were going.

Arya snorted. "Suit yourself," she said, and without any further preamble stripped off her armor, jerkin, and tunic. " _Fuck_ it's cold.”

"Arya!" Catelyn reprimanded. Ned sighed inwardly. It seemed that Arya had not gained a sense of propriety with age. He should be thankful that at least she was wearing some sort of breast-band.

"Sorry!" she said quickly. Shivering, she twisted around to look at her back, wincing with the motion. Purple bruises splotched across it, but Ned was more alarmed by the broad scar over her belly. She regarded a gash on her shoulder thoughtfully. "Brienne, do you think that'll need stitches?"

Lady Brienne stooped to inspect it. "Probably. I had the foresight to bring a needle and silk thread with us. With your permission…" 

"Go ahead," said Arya, wrapping her cloak around her lower back and holding it to her front. She ceased her shuddering as Brienne threaded the needle, and winced as she began the stitches.

"You've improved a great deal with that sword of yours," Ned said, trying to find a safe topic. 

"You gave her a sword," said Catelyn flatly. Ned winced. There had been no way to send her letters, but even so, if there had been he would have neglected to mention Arya’s dancing lessons. He’d never expected her to actually _use_ them. 

"She already had it," Ned defended himself. Then he caught Jon following the conversation with an anxious expression that reminded Ned of numerous escapades that ended with both Robb and Jon being sent to their rooms. Though the memories sent a pang of sorrow through him, he still had to stifle a laugh before his wife could notice. _I guess she didn’t steal it after all._ Unaware of what he’d noticed, Catelyn sighed, realizing this was a battle that she could not win, but Ned could tell the discussion wan’t over.

"She often bests me in the practice yard, my Lady," said Lady Brienne, “Lord Stark and yourself should be very proud of your daughter.” Catelyn smiled weakly, seeming to at least take heart that if Arya had decided upon this course, that she was a master in it.

As Lady Brienne finished the last of Arya's stitches, Jon walked over to them and took a place by Arya. "Rhaegal will be alright," he announced, “the giant’s arrow didn't pierce him too deeply, but I’d still like to rest for a while before we fly back to Winterfell. Would you mind…" he trailed off, gesturing at Brienne and indicating a bloodstain at his side. "Daenerys will have my head if it’s not seen to."

"Of course," said Brienne.

Jon sat down and began to take off his armor. "She's a dragon, not some shrinking violet," Arya muttered.

“Aye, she’s a dragon,” Jon said, “but she’s a dragon whose first husband died of a festering wound.” That explained what had happened to Khal Drogo, though what had happened to her unborn child and her brother was still a mystery. 

But any questions he has on the subject died on his tongue as soon as Jon stripped off his tunic and Ned saw his chest. _Dear gods,_ he thinks, _what happened?_ His torso was riddled with angry, barely-healed scars, the largest of which rested directly over his heart. Ned had seen enough of battle to know that Jon should not be breathing. Then he remembered Jon's words after his…resurrection, the empathetic "I know", and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the snow and the cold.

Jon noticed the subject of his gaze and met his eyes with a haunted expression. "There was a mutiny at the Wall," he said quietly, "They brought me back two days later."

_Promise me, Ned._ He was cravenly glad that he’d been saved from facing Lyanna in the afterlife. Ned forced himself to breath steadily, trying to swallow his panic by reassuring himself that Jon was indeed there in front of him, and alive, if not unharmed. He didn’t quite succeed. Whatever happened to his children, it had been the stuff of nightmares. Jon had been hammered into a commander, and if he heard Lady Brienne correctly, _a king;_ Arya had turned from a girl playing with swords into a ferocious warrior; Ned didn’t even know _how_ to address the mysticism surrounding Bran, and Cat, too, had suffered beyond what he could have imagined if she witnessed their son's death.

“What happened to all of you, after I died?” he asked, and gathered his courage for the answer.

-

To tell their full tales would have taken days, they all agreed, but his family told him what they thought most important. All the same, it was a horror story. They traded off speaking, sometimes reluctant, sometimes rushing through the tales like they couldn’t stop the words. Though he would have liked to know what had happened to Bran as well, they let him sleep. The circles under his eyes said he needed the rest. Ned asked no questions, and they only paused for silence three times. 

First, after Robb lost his heart, and the war with it. Arya and Cat’s stories converged at the Red Wedding, or so Arya called it, and then Cat, shaking violently, told him why. Ned couldn’t do anything other than hold his wife as she wept; he couldn’t take any more sorrow in such a short period of time, he thought - and then Arya opened her mouth again.

“When I came ‘round,” she said, voice full of cold fury, “the Hound had me on his stallion, and we were riding away. Then the Freys-“

“Arya,” Jon cut in quietly, but Arya shook her head.

“They’ll find out soon enough. Better they do it from us,” she said, and Jon reluctantly nodded. Arya told her parents _exactly_ what the Freys and the Boltons did to her brother’s body, and then no-one spoke for a very, very long time. 

Jon’s tale, when he began speaking again, bore more resemblance to Old Nan’s tales than any ranging or military campaign than he’d ever heard of. What Jon told him of Hardhome, and the Night King, chilled him to the bone. He imagined thousands upon thousands of those dead and rotting _things,_ staring out at him with cold, dead eyes of ice. 

When he finally reached the mutiny, he spoke of it in an odd, forcibly-detached way, as if he were trying to recount it assome other man’s life, and not his own. _Perhaps he is,_ Ned thought, and shuddered. 

“I remember the cold, most of all,” said Jon, “I don’t even think I felt Olly’s knife. Just the cold.” Then he shuddered, wrapped his cloak more tightly around him, and moved closer to the fire. 

While Jon appeared to hide nothing, Arya’s tale was more notable for the gaps it contained, which grew more and more frequent after Red Wedding, when she made her first kill. The cold fury she speaks with when she recounted the deaths chilled Ned to the bone. _She wanted to be a knight,_ Ned thought, _someone with honor. But this…_ He didn’t know what to make of it. Arya was hiding something from him, and he didn’t want to imagine what it could be, after she’d already killed several men and left the Hound to die. But she danced around the subject of her time in Bravos, only said “I learned how to kill people”, and when she returned to Westeros she left the Riverlands with Lord Walder’s corpse in her wake. Catelyn only responded with a short but emphatic, “Good,” her eyes shining with approval and fury. Sickly, that death only made him feel satisfied, though he told himself that he should be dismayed

The difference between this young woman and the spirited little girl Ned had raised was nothing less than horrifying. How Arya changed when she finished speaking, teasing Jon like she used to andslouching like she always would during dinners, did not make it easier. In fact, it just made it worse. It felt _unnaturally_ normal, as if she was changing her entire demeanor for Ned and Cat’s benefit, hiding all of the cold parts of her behind the mask of an Arya closer to the one they had known. It was unnerving, and Ned didn’t know what to make of it.

The only interruption from either Ned or Cat happened when Jon described the Battle of the Bastards, and how Rickon had been murdered when he was mere feet away from Jon, and safety. Ned had been about to open his mouth, to tell Jon that he didn’t blame him, that he’d done all he could- but then Catelyn spoke. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said hoarsely.

Ned was shocked. It was hard for him to remember his wife speaking any words that could be construed as kind to Jon. Jon, however, looked as if he’d been slapped. 

“But-“he said.

“You don’t fully believe that,” cut in Arya, accusingly. She had always hated that her mother had tried to keep her and Jon apart. That, at least, had not changed. However, the accusation did not sound childish- she spoke as if she had the knowledge to back it up. “Not completely, anyway.” 

Catelyn flinched, and gripped Bran’s sleeping body more tightly. “I am a mother grieving for her sons,” she said by way of explanation, “but I’m no longer so _cruel_ to think that you deserve it. I’ve hated you long enough.” _No longer?_ Ned thought, and beneath his astonishment he wondered what exactly had passed between them before. 

“You would have died for him, wouldn’t you,” Catelyn continued quietly, her voice tight with shame and grief. “Robb told me as much.”

Jon looked confused. “Robb told you?”

Ned’s wife took a deep breath and forced herself to meet Jon’s eyes. “When he told me he was making you his heir.

Jon’s mouth gaped. Ned thought he might have forgotten how to breathe. “ _What.”_

_“_ No one knew if you were alive, Arya,” Catelyn said shakily, “and we’d just received word that Sansa had been married to Tyrion Lannister. We thought Bran and Rickon had been killed - no one knew if Talisa would survive the war -“

“He was gong to make me a Stark,” Jon said. He had already been crying, but his breaths came more harshly, as if he were fighting off sobs.

“I told him…I told him he was a fool,” Catelyn said, her voice tinged with guilt. “I said that as long as Jon - as you - was his heir his children would never be safe.” She laughed bitterly. Ned himself was horrified. To imagine Jon wishing his nieces and nephews dead was unthinkable to anyone who knew him. “I should have known I was wrong when GreyWind snapped at me afterwards - those wolves were gifts from your Gods, I swear it, they’ve _never_ judged a man wrong. It didn’t matter, in the end. Robb didn’t listen to me. He’d all but drawn up the papers, and planned on sending word to a few of the Houses, and to Castle Black as well, after the wedding…”

“…And he never got the chance,” Jon finished for her ruefully.It was over a minute before he spoke again. Finally, he took a deep breath and didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I think…I’m too tired to hate you,” he said, and it was clear that he wasn’t talking about physical exhaustion. Catelyn nodded slightly, seeming to take this as the best response she could hope for. _I should have told her,_ Ned thought. By now, it might already be too late - the damage had been done, and only the Gods knew if it could ever be repaired. 

Still, when Arya began to speak again, there points of light to be found in the darkness, despite everything. Though from the telling, their reunion had been…strained, it was easy to see that Arya rejoiced, inwardly, at being reunited with Bran and Sansa. The two sisters had always fought so much that it gave him pride to see they had reconciled their differences. _The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives,_ he thought, and smiled. 

Jon, meanwhile, began to speak of a stubborn young queen with a fiery temper, but a larger heart, who saved a king she’d declared “in open rebellion” from a battle even more dire than the one they had just escaped. "There's nothing more beautiful than hope when you think all is lost,” Jon said, “Nothing.” A broad grin cut across Jon's face. It looked as if the weight of the world was lifted from Jon's shoulders- his voice gone soft and reverent, his eyes distant, but adoring, no doubt remembering the beautiful young woman who'd flown halfway across the realm to risk her life for a man she barely knew. _Oh,_ Ned thought, _Oh Lyanna, our boy is in love._

“Is that when you knew you loved her?” Ned asked.

Jon smiled. “It’s when I knew there was no turning back from it.”

The rest of the story passed fairly quickly. Littlefinger died (by his children’s order), Cersei betrayed Jon and his new Queen, and they returned to Winterfell (“I’m sure you had lots of _fun_ on the return voyage,” said Arya, and Jon shoved her good-naturedly, though he did blush with embarrassment.) There was a reunion which both Jon and Arya both smiled to recall, and then Jon learned of his heritage. 

Which, Ned didn’t have to guess, went poorly. 

But Jon did not speak of his reaction- perhaps he did not want to reopen the wound, or was unwilling to do so in front of anyone but Ned. Whatever the case, Jon said that with the news of the Wall’s fall, he did not have the luxury of denying it. Nor did he wish to face the coming war before reconciling with Daenerys, whom he wed within that week. Ned couldn’t blame him - if it had been rushed, at least it had not been he painfully awkward, if not terrifying (or at least it had been, on Ned’s part) experience of wedding a woman he’d barely known for a purely political purpose. 

“It was shortly after the wedding that we realized the dead weren’t yet marching South” said Arya, “and none of us knew why.”

“Bran tried to spy through the ravens, but the Night King always Saw him watching, and Bran always had to flee,” said Jon. Both Ned and Cat stiffened at the mention of the powers he now possessed. It was another terrifying aspect of their new reality, and Ned too was trying to reconcile his son with the boy who’d sat before the heart tree, clinical and detached while he brought the dead to life. Ned realized that until the last moment, when he’d successfully called Cat back, Bran had shown little emotion, and repressed a shudder. 

Lade Brienne spoke up from across the fire. “From what we could tell, the Night King took a portion of his forces and moved down the Wall first. Their Graces and Lady Sansa sent word to Castle Black, Moletown, the Shadow Tower, and the Last Hearth - most evacuated in time, but those too stubborn to leave are probably part of his army. More Others were sent throughout the Gift, though they haven’t reached the Last Hearth yet.”

“Some of the northernmost mountain clans weren’t so fortunate,” Jon muttered darkly, then took a breath and began again. “We didn’t understand what his plan was - we had all expected the Night King to sweep South first. It wasn’t until the Night King reached the Shadow Tower and then began to fly _north_ west _,_ back to the Lands of Always Winter, that Bran guessed at his plan.”

“And what was his plan?” Ned asked, glancing down at Bran’s sleeping features and then away to look back at Jon. 

“To raise his brothers,” said Arya, and a chill ran down Ned’s spine at the words.

“When Bran looked back far enough,” Jon said, his tone grim, “he saw that when the Children of the Forest created the Night King, they also made two brothers to serve him - Night Princes, Bran called them. More powerful than the White Walkers that commanded his armies, the Princes had greater control of the dead, and some gift with the Sight, though they were not as strong as the Night King himself.

“They died - or were slain, more accurately - in the first War for the Dawn, somewhere just south of where the Wall would eventually be built. And their…spirits, for lack of better term, or some connection to them, _something,_ must have remained there, because that’s where the Night King went to after the Wall fell.” Jon continued. “It was more than just a physical barrier. Wargs couldn’t see across it, and the Others can’t cross it either - only the wights. ”

“We think that if he wasn’t going to use them to conquer Westeros more quickly, he would have sent the princes to Essos,” Arya added. “Sam - he’s studying to be a Maester - said that they have their own legends about the Long Night. The Rhonar and Yi Ti, especially.”

“You’re telling us that there are two more of them,” said Catelyn breathlessly, “and Essos has not been warned.”

“No,” said Arya, “there _were_ going to be two more of them. That’s why you’re here.”

Ned’s heart skipped a beat and then began galloping in his chest. “You - you brought us back-“

“Instead of the Princes,” Jon finished for him.

“But how!” Ned cried. He felt sick. Blood magic was bad enough, to have been an unwilling participant in some demon’s scheme was unthinkable. Catelyn shook like a leaf in a winter storm next to him, clutching Bran more closely to them. 

There was a moment of silence as Arya, Jon, and Brienne tried to find a delicate way to phrase what had happened. “If he succeeded, it would be over. So Bran made a plan,” Jon said. “The Night King is a greenseer, or near enough to it that it makes little difference. His …ceremony used the heart tree in his fortress, the one where he and his brothers where created, as a sort of focal point.”

“But all of the weirwoods are connected,” said Arya. “And Bran’s magic too, so he could tap into them. All we needed is a bit of power to help him find someone to bring back, and there’s power in kings blood (we had enough candidates there), and a big enough ‘well’ for him to use.”

“The circle of heart trees is by Castle Black is one of the oldest in Westeros,” said Jon, “He said it would be the best place, so we decided to risk an excursion. The three of us are the best fighters with Valyrian Steel, so…” he trailed of vaguely. “We couldn’t sit back and do nothing.”

“What’s to stop him from trying again,” Ned asked. He tried to keep his breathing even and calm, and knew he was failing. He didn’t know what to make of any of this - his son breaking into so some unholy ceremony to raise the dead - he _should_ be dead. The thought battered against his mind like hard rainfall pattering against stone.

There was another silence as his children and their shield considered this. Finally, Arya spoke, and her words chilled Ned’s heart. “Only death can pay for life,” she said slowly, giving up on delicacy. “And we used up all of the deaths from the Night King’s army to buy you back.”

His breath caught. “How many?” Ned asked, shaking.

“There needed to be a lot, for him to resurrect something that died so long ago…” Jon said evasively.

“Lady Brienne, how many?” Catelyn asked. 

Lady Brienne took a deep breath. “Tens of thousands, my lady. Maybe hundreds.”

Catelyn put a hand over her mouth, unable to stop her horrified expression, and Ned had to swallow back bile. _Hundreds of thousands,_ he thought, and wished he were back in the Black Cells, or had gone mad there. Hundreds of thousands of men, woman, and children had died so that he could live, while Robb and Rickon - “Why not your brothers,” he asked, harsher than he had intended. “Why bring _us_ back?” _Surely_ they must know that’s what he and Cat would have wanted. What kind of parents would they be otherwise, to wish to outlive their children?

“For Robb…it was king’s blood,” said Jon, sounding as if he blamed himself. “Bran said that ‘the blood of one king cannot aid another, only destroy it’.” 

“And with Rickon he wouldn’t even try!” Arya said angrily. “He said that the connection was always strongest between parents and children, and that was why the Red Woman stole Gendry instead of me.” Her expression was torn between anger and guilt, though for admitting her anger, or for still being grateful for Ned and Cat being here, he could not tell. 

Ned took a few deep breaths to calm himself. A small, shameful part of him wanted to rage against them for not trying anyway, but a larger, greater one hated himself for being the winning option. It was a useless, pointless thought, but it gnawed at him like a hungry animal, heedless of reason. 

He could hear no more of this tonight. 

“You should all get some sleep,” he said abruptly. He realized he sounded harsh. “I don’t blame you for what you couldn’t control,” he added more gently, “but I can’t hear any more tonight. I’ll take the watch.” Daylight may be soon, but the others looked so tired he doubted it would matter. Ned, however, didn’t think he could sleep if he tried. 

The others seemed to accept this, and after a moment made various reluctant signs of agreement. As they started gathering up their cloaks and laying down to rest, Jon curling up against the dragon’s side for warmth, the rest gathering around the fire, Catelyn did not move. “I’ll watch with you,” she said.

“You don’t have to.”

“Our son was murdered in front of me,” Catelyn said. “I can not close my eyes without seeing it, again and again. I can not sleep.” Ned nodded, and pulled her closer to him, trying to focus on the warmth of her body and the sound of Bran’s deep, steady breathing. _We are together,_ he thought to himself. _The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives._

Once the others were breathing deeply in sleep, she spoke again. “Our children have changed.”

“Yes,” Ned said simply, but there was a grimness to it. It was not just that he had missed them growing up and the chance to guide them through it, though that he would regret for the rest of his days. Arya, Jon, and even Bran, though what Ned had seen of him was limited to a few frantic moments and his other children’s story, had altered in ways that were both astonishing and frightening. When she let her true feelings show through, Arya was cold and unforgiving, theyearning and joy of learning to fight burned out of her. Bran’s new powers filled him with unease and an unwelcome distrust he tried to push from his mind - the tales he had heard of magic were not kind ones. And though they had left Sansa’s story for her to tell,Ned had a sickening sense of doubt that his eldest daughter’s romanticism survived her last marriage.

Catelyn took a steadying breath, and continued to stare out over the fire. “They are still our children, all the same.” 

And they were. Ned knew that no matter how they changed, he would still love them. What kind of Father would he be, otherwise? “I’m proud of them,” he said, and Cat nodded her agreement. And then, unwilling to let it fester like wound between them, he added, “I should have told you about Jon.”

Catelyn went stiff and turned to face him. “If I were not so relieved that you’re alive,” she said, her voice growing cold, “I would not be speaking to you. Know that. You let me _hate_ that boy, for years. For nothing!”

Ned’s felt the guilt again in the pit of his stomach. “I did not want you to have to choose between Jon and your own children,” he explained.

“You should have told me,” Catelyn repeated. And then, “This is all my fault.”

Ned looked at her in confusion. Surely she couldn’t blame herself for Robb and Rickon’s deaths? 

“Do you remember,” she began, voice thick with guilt, “when Jon got the pox?” It was a short story, but by the end Ned didn’t know what emotion he felt strongest: anger, sorrow, or pity. Catelyn’s bitterness toward Jon he had tried to accept as a necessary evil long ago, but he’d never know how deep it was until this moment. For her to want him sent away was expected, but to wish death upon a _child…_

_“_ I should have told you,” Ned said numbly. Maybe Jon could have had a mother as well as a father. Would Lyanna hate him, when he reunited with her? Ned hoped not, but dreaded it all the same.

“Yes,” replied Catelyn. When she met his eyes, he saw they were full of unshed tears. “You should have told me.” 

-

Bran began to stir shortly after the sun began to rise of the horizon, the snow-covered landscape reflecting its red and orange hues. He murmured something unintelligible, stretched slightly, and opened his eyes, bleary with sleep. Catelyn’s breath caught in her throat.

Bran’s eyes focused on her, and then on Ned, and he gave a small smile. “It worked,” he said, half amazed. 

Cat leaned down and lifted him up so she could embrace him, and Ned shifted over to do the same. After a moment, Bran’s arms came up to respond, squeezing them slightly, but his response was not the eagerness that Jon or Arya had exhibited. That worried him.

Bran eventually pulled away, and Ned used it as a chance to wipe the tears from his eyes, while Catelyn did likewise. His son moved away from them slightly so he could see them both better, and propped himself up on his elbows. Ned tried to ignore the unresponsiveness of his legs.

“I’m sorry we weren’t there for you when you woke up,” said Catelyn apologetically. “You must have been so confused.”

“I remember being so angry when you weren’t there,” Bran said, but the emotion did not touch his words. 

“The King would not wait any longer,” Ned told him. “And your mother had to go South…”

“To try to find out who tried to kill me,” Bran finished for him. “I know. I saw her on the ship from White Harbor, before I awoke. You’re hand was bandaged,” he told Cat, “And Ser Roderick was sick.” A chill ran down Ned’s spine.

“Bran…” said Catelyn quietly.

Their son did not wait for her to ask. “I had to go North, so I could learn to be the Three-Eyed Raven.” His eyes narrowed slightly in concentration. “You thought that Varys had some dark art, to know all that he did, but he doesn’t. All of his little birds are human. Mine are not.”

Ned remembered Catelyn telling him those exact words when they met in King’s Landing, and the fear and distaste that had tinged them. Hearing them repeated from Bran’s lips, and all of the dangerous, frightening implications they held unnerved him. He followed Bran’s gaze to a where a raven cawed in the tree behind the sleeping dragon. 

“I can see everything now,” said Bran. “I see so much that sometimes its hard to remember how to be Brandon Stark. But I’m glad that you’re back.” 

_He’s still our son,_ Ned told himself. Bran turned his gaze back to the raven that hopped from branch to branch. “Don’t be sad that I’m broken,” he said matter-of-factly. “I can fly, now.” He closed his eyes, seeming not to notice their expressions. From the barren tree, the raven took wing, and Ned shuddered. 

_No matter what, he is still our son._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so a little bit behind the scenes:
> 
>  
> 
> First off, this chapter exists kind of as a breather for Ned and Cat to get caught up before they have to worry about politics and the Northern Lords and what not, which is why it did not take place in Winterfell.
> 
> the Night Princes are obviously bs that I just made up for the sake of an excuse to bring Ned and Cat back. Hopefully that's sufficient as an explanation? Really, the purpose of the NIght King's ritual was just to start the plot, and as such it's probably not as well defined as it could be. However, in my defense, all of the magic in Martin's world is ill-defined, because he doesn't like hard and fast, scientific rules for it, and I may have used that a bit to my favor. The reasons for Robb and Rickon not being brought back are also my own inventions, but again, hopefully they're enough of a satisfying explanation.
> 
> With Ned and Jon, I thought that Jon wouldn't be most upset for Ned not telling him, though that would also be a thorn in his side, but not knowing if Ned actually cared for him as his own son. I think that Jon would fell like he was being orphaned all over again, and even though in this story he's had a bit of adjustment time, seeing Ned again would bring all of those feelings to the surface, because now he has an outlet for them. 
> 
> Dany's tried and true naming method for her kids is taking the name of someone she loved or respected and changing the suffix. So, Eddarys. I flipped a coin on the gender- I figure Dany has some minor prophetic abilities with her dreams (though it is very slight), and so would Bran, so they might know the gender? If it had been a girl it would have been Eddaera.
> 
> Lastly, I tried to fit in a Gendarya conversation in this chapter but as much as I tried, it just didn't flow right. So that revelation for Ned and Cat will have to wait for the next chapter.
> 
> Coming up:  
> -Sansa!  
> \- Ned meets Jon's wife and remembers when Robert had been worried about her _son_. Clearly, they had picked the wrong person to fear.  
>  -Arya introduces (or reintroduces) her parents to her bf.  
> -The Northern lords are upset  
> \- Ned is reunited with some people he wanted dead a few days ago.  
> \- And, either in the next chapter or the following, a very, very awkward family dinner.


	3. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned and Cat return home, meet a dragon, and their daughter much changed. There is a council meeting, and afterwards, the northern lords get quite the surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defense, I still update more often than George R.R. Martin.
> 
> I've stared at this chapter too long, even if I'm still not _entirely_ happy with it. Sorry about the long wait, and see you guys in two weeks.

The others slept fitfully, Jon most of all. Whatever Bran was doing, though, Ned could not believe it was sleeping, if only because of his near-unnatural stillness. The thought made him uneasy. As for himself, he was exhausted by the new heaviness in his heart, but physically he felt as alert as ever. A gift for a long watch, though he wished nothing more than to sleep – or he would, if he did not fear the nightmares.

 Perhaps a few hours after sunrise, Brienne woke, and, seemingly unable to find rest, stood up, stretched, and after a moment of consideration, walked over to where Ned and Cat were keeping watch.

Catelyn shifted away from him slightly and nodded a greeting. “Brienne. I think we have much to speak about.”

“Yes,” said the lady knight, “I believe we do.” She sat down in front of them in the snow. “You would like to hear of your daughters?”

Ned’s wife nodded. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Not what happened to them, not exactly, I will leave the details for them to reveal. But…“ She trailed off, trying to find the right words.

Luckily, Brienne seemed to understand her difficulty. “You want to know how to prepare yourself,” she said, “for how they have changed.” Catelyn nodded her assent. Ned wanted to know that as well, though he feared it would break his heart.

“You should know first,” continued Brienne, “that there is no woman or man I would rather serve than your daughters - and your son as well, Lord Stark,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “Lord Brandon, too, but he rarely asks for any aid.” Ned’s heart once again swelled with pride for all of them. “But,” said Brienne, seeming to weigh her next words carefully, “I do not believe they are the girls that you spoke of to me. Not anymore.”

Catelyn’s breath caught, and Ned’s heart sank. “You’ve seen Arya,” said Brienne, “You said that she was a headstrong girl. Half a wolf-cub, if I remember correctly.” Ned had to smile - it was an apt description. Brienne nodded in the direction of where Arya lay sleeping. “She’s not a girl or cub anymore. She is a woman, but I would not say that she is not a wolf, either.” Ned thought of her, graceful and lethal during the skirmish, like a force of nature. That feral smile, when she told him she slit open Walder Frey’s throat. How was he supposed to reconcile his carefree little girl with the woman that he’d seen tonight? It was a hard truth to face, especially when the change had happened with the blink of an eye.

“Arya loves her pack, though,” added Brienne less somberly, “And she defends it fiercely. That, I think, is her best quality, more-so even than her skill with a sword.”

 _The pack survives,_ thought Ned. If his daughter was a wolf, she was a Stark still.

“And Sansa?” Ned asked. What had the world done to his eldest daughter?

Brienne took a deep breath. “I do not believe that Sansa Stark is much like the girl you remember. She is still a lady, and I’ve seen her smile at times, around her siblings. But she stopped waiting for a white knight to rescue her long ago.” It felt like something in his chest was constricting; Ned found it hard to breathe. She had always been so _hopeful._ “Sansa rescued herself instead, She’s…” Brienne trailed off, searching for words. “Do you remember, my Lady, when I told you that you were strong, but in a different way than I was?”

“A women’s strength,” said Catelyn softly. “One that had no need of swords.”

“Yes,” said Breinne, nodding. Ned had never really heard of the particular phrase, but decided it was apt. For his wife may never have been in the midst of a battle, but Ned did not doubt that she was just as strong as he for having gone through what she did, if not more. “Sansa is stronger than you or I will ever be,” Brienne said. “Arya as well, though her strength is different.”

She let the silence fall as both Ned and his wife tried to absorb her words. Ned discovered that he couldn’t. He was relieved to know that this woman thought so highly of them, but they were his _children._ He wanted to scream for the unfairness of it; they shouldn’t have had to be strong.

“There’s something else,” said Brienne, after a few minutes. She unsheathed her sword, holding the hilt out to Ned.

He took it and inspected the longsword more closely, careful not to cut himself on the razor-sharp edge. The hilt was more ostentatious than Ned thought necessary for a tool designed for killing, decorated (he was surprised to see) with golden lions’ heads with glimmering ruby eyes. Ripples of color ran along the Valyrian steel blade, a dark smoky grey, and where the light caught it, a crimson blood red. But despite the gilded hilt and the red added to the steel, Ned would recognize the steel anywhere. “Ice,” he said softly. _What have the Lannister’s done to you?_

“Your daughter recognized it as well,” said Brienne, a note of approval in her voice. “Tywin had it melted down to make this and another, Widow’s Wail. After…unexpected circumstances, Ser Jaime gave it to me when I set out to find your daughters. I have named it Oathkeeper,” she said solemnly, “And now I am returning it to you.”

Ned considered the blade that had been passed from father to son for millennia. Then he considered Brienne, and how had pursued her oath to its fulfillment and continued to serve his house thereafter. How she had fought, calling him back to a red desert and another warrior with another blade, one that shone with an ethereal milk-pale light. Ned could never match her skill, not unless he trained night and day for years.

 _Besides,_ he thought, _I am better with a greatsword._

“Keep it,” he told her, “And wield it in the service of my house.” He held it outstretched for her to take.

“But my Lord!” she said, “This is-“

“My decision,” Ned finished for her. “Your skills will be required, I think. Perhaps after this is over I can find its twin and have Ice reforged. Until then, I will rest easier in the knowledge that you use it well.”

Reluctantly, Brienne took the sword and sheathed it. She had nearly been moved to tears, he saw. It was not hard to guess why. He doubted that she had gained much respect for her choice to wear armor instead of skirts, nor expected such a gift from her liege-lord. Catelyn smiled at her reassuringly, and Ned was pleased she supported his decision.

Then Catelyn’s expression changed, becoming something cold and furious, though not, he thought, at Brienne. “You said Jaime Lannister gave it to you. Was this before or after he planned to murder my son and me? ‘Jaime Lannister sends his regards’ - those were the last words I heard. We were _fools_ to trust him.”  

In an instant, Ned was filled with rage for the arrogant, honor-less man that he destroyed his family. He thought of the Kingslayer’s mocking grin, filled with false sorrow as he handed Brienne Oathkeeper. But beneath his anger, Ned realized it made no sense- Valyrian steel was too precious to give away, even for a family as rich as the Lannister’s. So why had he done it?

Brienne looked like she had been preparing for this line of questioning, but was fighting not to wince. “My Lady, the Red Wedding was none of his doing. I was there when he said those words to Roose Bolton- ‘Jaime Lannister sends his regards’. He meant them in jest, not in malice.”

“And you believe that!” said Catelyn explosively. Brienne flinched, as if she had been struck. “Brienne, you are a good woman, but surely you cannot be so naive as to think- “

“I do,” said a quiet voice. Nearby, Bran shifted his weight to pull himself up and turn in their direction. For a moment, Ned thought his eyes had gone pure white, before returning to their usual brown. It must have been some odd reflection off the snow. “I’ve told Jon and Daenerys to pardon him for any crimes against me. We need him.”

And that was intolerable. Ned was speechless. Bran did not speak with reluctance or contained anger, nor was there exactly forgiveness in his voice. He truly just _didn’t care._ He didn’t care that the man who had pushed him, a boy of nine years, out of a window presumably to his death, sat unpunished while he was crippled for the rest of his days. It meant nothing to him, Ned realized with dismay. Truly nothing.

“In any case,” Bran continued, “I do not believe the man who pushed me from that window exists anymore. You should listen,” he said, indicating Brienne, “to what she has to say.”

As the others awoke shortly after, Ned was still turning the question that was Jaime Lannister over in his mind. If his children’s judgement was correct, he was needed, being one of the few seasoned commanders at their disposal. More than that, his actions recently – giving Brienne her sword, rescuing Edmure Tully and bringing the Lannister and Tully force at Riverrun north -  did not align with the arrogant, callous man that had slaughtered Ned’s men and threw Bran from the Old Tower.

But to Ned Stark, this mattered little and less. Jaime Lannister had tried to kill his son. And even if Bran felt indifferent towards him or even _respected_ his change in behavior, Ned still he hated him with every single fiber of his being. That he swore his sword ( _Ned’s_ sword) to the Starks could not change that. Nor did the discovery the wrong Ned had done him, judging him for an oathbreaker that horrible day in the Red Keep a lifetime ago. _Forgiveness,_ Ned thought, _may be impossible. And I have no intention of giving it._ The last time he felt such anger was when he’d received news that Rhaegar Targaryen had kidnapped and raped his sister.

There was no miraculous truth he could unveil to bring the object of his fury back into his good graces. Not this time.

-

It was not a long flight- a few hours, Ned suspected. The wind was bitterly cold, biting any exposed flesh. Catelyn sat behind him this time, and spent most of the journey with her head burrowed against his cloak. The thing smelled foul, but it was warmer than nothing. Her arms were wrapped around Ned, holding him as close as she could in an attempt to warm her numb fingers. Whatever the circumstance, it felt good, to be held, and that made the uncomfortable ride more bearable. Finally, after a few hours, Arya cried out in delight, pointing to something in the distance. Catelyn’s curiosity overcame her terror, and she looked down.

Winterfell appeared on the horizon- a child’s snow-castle nestled in a field of white. The sight was magical. He wondered if this was what Bran had been trying to see when he climbed. Ned could see _everything -_ the hunters bringing home their catch, the large wolf-pack driving elk through the glistening snow, and the castle, growing closer and closer. _Home,_ he thought, and his heart swelled with something indescribable.

But he could also see the coming of war at their gates. There were encampments strewn around the walls, housing little toy soldiers with miniscule flags waving standards of mermaids and mailed fists, and yes, set apart from the rest, a couple of lions. Apart from those camps were what Ned assumed to be the Dothraki – their cavalry was the largest he’d ever seen. Somewhere, too, was the Wildling army. Savages, or so he had thought. He reminded himself that many Southerners said the same of the mountain clans, and dearly hoped that his son and his bride knew what they were doing.

As the castle became clearer, he saw that it had not come out of the Bolton’s residency fully intact. Many of the buildings looked new- the stables, the guardhouse, to name a few, while others were missing entirely. Ned had been so preoccupied with the changes in his children that he had forgotten about Ramsay’s fire. Another wave of anger passed through him – was anything the way he remembered?

The dragon flew past the cheering guards, towards the godswood. Amidst the evergreens and barren branches, the leaves of the heart trees could be seen, a brilliant crimson red. Jon circled lower and lower, towards one of the rare clearings in the ancient wood. They landed with a _thud,_ snow drifting up at them from the impact.

Ned breathed in the scent of the wood around him. He had always liked the godswood. It was an overgrown, wild place, a Northern place. When he walked through the trees he could imagine generations of Starks before him following the same paths. But he’d never been more relieved to be here than he was now.

The others were dropping to the ground; Jon once again carried Bran, and deposited him at the dragon’s side. Ned dismounted before his wife, and then carefully helped her down.  There was relief in her eyes, too. Finally, finally, they were home. _And Sansa will be close_.

Though he very much doubted that they, the late Lord and Lady of Winterfell, could stroll into the courtyard like he wished. His wife came to the same conclusion. “We can’t be seen,” she thought aloud.

“No,” said Arya. She looked apologetic. “Not until we announce that you’re alive, anyway. Sansa told us she’d come as soon as the watchmen spotted us…” she trailed off.

 _Soon,_ Ned told herself, _soon._ He tried to calm the racing of her heart. The closer he was to reuniting with the people he loved, the more he feared that something would snatch them away.

Thankfully, they only had to wait a few minutes. A voice rang out through the trees. “ _Jon? Arya?”_

Ned’s heart nearly stopped. The tone was different, a little less high, less girlish, but he recognized the speaker. His head snapped up to the edge of the clearing, towards the sound. He heard Cat’s breath catch as well, and he grasped her hand tightly. There was a moment of anticipation that seemed to stretch a lifetime. And then, two women emerged from a path in the wood.

The shorter of the two was silver-haired, unmistakably the Dragon Queen. She paused for but a moment, before rushing forward to her husband and her dragon. No doubt there was all-too emotional reunion only a few paces away, but Ned could not turn to watch it even if he wished to. His eyes were fixed upon the other, taller woman that was unmistakably their daughter. Sansa bore a striking resemblance to her mother. The silken Southron fashions that she had favored had been abandoned in favor of a Northern-style fur cloak and a Stark-grey gown. _She looks,_ Ned thought, _like the Northern lady we always knew she could be._

His daughter seemed rooted to the spot, trembling. After several deep breaths, she called out to them. “Mother? Father?”

Ned spoke through a too-tight throat. “Hello, sweetheart. Your mother and I are very,” he choked out, “ _very_ glad to see that you’re safe.” They were inadequate words – not even wholly true. It was a harrowing thing, to realize that his sweetest child had suffered more than he had.

Sansa didn’t care. She rushed forward, and Ned caught her just in time before they tumbled backwards into the snow. Catelyn, too, wrapped her arms around their daughter, and for a few moments they just held on to her, both murmuring _I-love-yous_ and _I’ve-missed-you_ and _I’m sorry_ into her hair, while she tried to speak through her tears. Ned felt some missing piece of him fit back into his heart. How often had he imagined her dead, in the Black Cells? How many times had her heart-rending cries echoed through his thoughts as he and Cat waited this morning?

Finally, Sansa pulled away, wiping tears from her eyes with her sleeves, a childish gesture that was out-of-place with the rest of her. _Gods,_ with the swing of a sword all of his children had grown into men and women. It would take some adjusting to.

“I thought that…well, I wanted that it would work but…” Sansa said, with a small, helpless laugh. “I’ve learned not to hope for much.”

With a pang, Ned noted that the Sansa he’d known would have never doubted. His little girl would have trusted that the righteous would prevail over the forces of evil, because in her mind, that was the way the world worked. He wondered if she still listened to the minstrels’ tales and delighted in _Florian and Jonquil_. He doubted it.

He’d also been so focused on Sansa that he hadn’t noticed the direwolf approaching behind him until Catelyn’s eyes widened and a wet nose was pushing into his face. Suddenly he was face first with a great white beast with gleaming red eyes that stood as tall as his shoulder, nipping and licking him excitedly. Ned was so surprised he nearly jumped, which made Sansa and Arya laugh, so he had to smile.

“Hello Ghost,” he said, laughing, “You’ve grown up too, haven’t you?” His son’s wolf wagged his tail so hard Ned thought it might fly off. _I didn’t think he was so fond of me,_ Ned thought.

Arya came up to scratch behind Ghost’s ears. “Nymeria’s here too,” she told her parents with a wide grin. “But she doesn’t come near the castle. She’s not…tame.” Then her eyes focused on something behind Ned, and he turned and saw Jon there, waiting for him to finish his reunion.

He held his wife close as he walked, and arm around her narrow waist. They made a striking couple - his son dark haired and Daenerys pale and silver, both of them garbed in black. Her pregnancy did not show, yet, but one of her hands rested unconsciously over her belly. Her posture was proud, but he could see on her face that she was trying to hide her nervousness. Ned wasn’t sure what he expected from the woman who freed Slaver’s Bay and burned the armies of her enemies, but it was not apprehension. Then again, she was, after all, meeting her husband’s father, the namesake of her child, for the first time – that was reason enough to make anyone nervous.

“Father,” said Jon, and Daenerys smiled satisfactorily by this choice of word, “this is my wife, Daenerys.”

The young woman held out a hand for him to clasp and gave a smile that, for the most part, hid her nerves. “Jon has told me much about you, Lord Stark” she said formally, “I am _very_ glad to be able to meet you.”

Ned surprised her by embracing her instead.

Daenerys stiffened momentarily, then returned the embrace, relaxing. When they parted, her smile was more genuine. “Jon has told me much about you as well”, he told her, “And there is no need to call me ‘Lord Stark’. You’re my family now, twice-over, in fact.”

It was a strange thought – despite its hypocrisy, as past Starks had, on rare occasions, wed their nieces. But the fact Daenerys was visibly moved, having to blink away tears, eased most of his lingering discomfort. His acceptance meant more to her than he’d realized, and that could only mean that she loved his son dearly. “I’m glad that Jon was lucky enough to find someone who loves him.”

“Your son,” said Daenerys, looking at Jon, “is the best man I have ever known. Love is what he deserves. And he’s given me the most precious gift I could wish for.” Jon caught his wife’s lips in a quick, chaste kiss. Daenerys smiled softly up at him, love and affection written across her face, and Ned knew that his son’s marriage would be warmer than that of most noblemen he’d ever met, if not all. Love could grow between a couple, as it had in his own marriage, but for it to be present at the start was exceedingly rare.

 “Jon tells me you were moved to tears when he told you what I named our son,” she continued, her smile radiant. “I’d hoped that you would have approved of the name, but I never expected a confirmation. We will have to talk, later. There was much more I wished to be able to tell you.” _While you were dead_ went unspoken, but he looked forward to the conversation nonetheless. He was curious about his new daughter, conqueror though she might be.

Daenerys’s eyes slid over to Ned’s wife, and her smile turned cold. Ned recognized the expression from his time in court – the expression of a woman being forced to play nicely with a someone whom she regarded with distaste. “Lady Catelyn Stark, I presume?”

Catelyn looked taken aback for her abruptly cold tone, but recovered surprisingly quickly. “I’m pleased to meet you, your Grace,” said his wife, in her most neutral tone, bowing her head slighly.

“You and I must speak as well, Lady Stark” said the Queen. “I will admit that I have heard less about you than your husband. But what I have heard leads me to believe we’ll have _much_ to discuss.”

“As you say, your Grace.”

Unseen by their wives, Jon met Ned’s eyes in an almost apologetic glance. Clearly, he had not expected his wife’s cold behavior, but Ned felt confident in assuming it was for Ned and his siblings’ sake, not Catelyn Stark’s. _How much did he tell her?_ Ned wondered, and with a sinking feeling, realized that Jon would not have had to tell Daenerys much at all.

From this one, brief interaction, and from what he knew of her already, Ned was quickly coming to understand that this woman was one of quick tempers and even fiercer passions. A dragon, in all respects – which was worrisome to Ned, though he tried not to dwell on it. And Jon she held close to her heart. Though Catelyn’s treatment of Jon had been more neglect rather than outright abuse, her disdain of Jon caused the boy more than a small amount of pain. He suspected that if not for his own presence, Daenerys would much, much less civil than her current state.

Should he feel slighted by her attitude towards his wife? Or relieved, that finally someone loved Jon enough to confront her? Either way, Ned felt he would be wronging one of them, and as such, was torn.

It was Sansa who finally cut the thick tension that had fallen across the group. “We can’t stay here.”

“No,” said Bran. Ned had nearly forgotten about him, sitting silently against the dragon’s side as if it were no more than an oversized dog. “Brienne, if you could help me to the heart tree – “

“No,” said Sansa firmly. “There were enough rumors about all of you leaving as it is; I will not have our people whispering that you’ve died because you weren’t seen returning with Jon and Arya.”

“The Night King – “

“Can wait for another half an hour, surely!” said Sansa, not to be moved.

“She’s right,” said Jon, “At least go visit Sam and see if he’s found anything new for you to investigate.”

Bran sighed and nodded reluctantly.

“I’ve kept one of the paths to the keep relatively clear, so I can lead Mother and Father back without being seen. We can take one of the servants’ passages up to the residential wing,” said Sansa. Evidently, she’d had a plan in place for the off-chance Bran did succeed, which was a level of responsibility that Ned had rarely seen in her.

“You want some time alone with them, I take it?” said Daenerys sympathetically.

Sansa sighed. “Whatever time can be spared.” She looked suddenly weary. “Can you give me several hours?”

Daenerys considered this, then nodded. “Three and a half hours, before we can reconvene the council.”

“Thank you.”

Arya joined the conversation, looking almost apologetic. “I’ll be in the smithy, if you need me.”

All of the gathered younger generation gave her wry, knowing smiles. Ned had no idea why.

“Have you…?” Daenerys asked, trailing off, looking between Arya, Ned and Cat.

“Nope,” said Arya.

Sansa stifled a laugh. “Of course you haven’t.”

Arya scowled, but there was no real heart in it. And then she was off, striding into the woods. Ned watched her go, trying to remember that he wouldn’t have to fear never seeing her again, this time.

Sansa took one of his hands. In the other, she grasped Cat’s. “Shall we?”

-

A short while later, they sat in the Lord’s chambers, trying to decide how to begin. They had taken a few minutes to change into clean clothing provided by Sansa (Ned personally hoped the old garments would be burned), before listening to Sansa’s account. Their daughter stood at the far wall, looking troubled.

Ned had been surprised to learn that she had taken over the chambers he had shared with Cat, assuming that they would have gone to Jon, but decided not to comment on it. She had made relatively few changes to the room, aside for the elegant embroidery pushed into corners of the room, waiting for Sansa to have a spare moment to work on them. The stacks of parchment on his (or Sansa’s) desk threatened to give him a headache just from looking at them.

Finally, Sansa sat down at the edge of the bed, where Ned and Cat were waiting patiently. “Did you tell Cersei?” she asked, “About what you knew?”

Ned wasn’t sure why she decided to start there, but answered anyway. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Robert would have killed her children – “

“I’m sensing a pattern here,” said Sansa. She sighed. “All of the men in this family are bloody fools.” Ned started. Hearing Sansa swear was like hearing a cat bark. “But,” she sighed, “I think I’m glad. Because…because I told Cersei that you were going to make us leave. So, I wondered…”

“…If it was your fault,” Ned whispered. He didn’t know what he had been thinking. Truly, he shouldn’t have told Sansa and Arya that they were going to sail until they were at the docks ready to depart.

“You were a child, Sansa,” said Cat, grasping her hand. “I’m sure that you thought that you were in love with Joffrey. You mustn’t blame yourself.”

“I did think I was in love with him,” said Sansa, laughing despondently. “Until he killed you. I didn’t love him after that. I almost killed him.”

“You _what?_ ” Ned couldn’t stop the words from leaving his mouth. His little girl could never be a killer. It simply didn’t make sense. And she had survived the attempt? His wife was equally shocked.

“I almost killed him,” Sansa repeated firmly. “Not that I actually tried. But I almost did.” She hesitated. “I can tell you, but it will hurt you.”

Ned’s heart was beating faster, but he grabbed both her hands in his and met his daughter’s eyes. “Sansa. If you need to talk about _anything,_ I’ll listen. Even if it pains your mother and I.” He squeezed her hands gently, trying to reassure her that everything was alright, even if he did not feel like it would be. He had to be strong for her. He was her father; that was his duty.

Sansa nodded, and took a deep breath. “One day a few weeks _after_ , he had the guards take me from my rooms. They wouldn’t tell me where we were going, at first. And then I realized we were going to the outer walls of the keep. To the ramparts by the gate.” The ramparts, Ned realized, where they put -

Revulsion and dread slammed into Ned like a hammer. _Oh gods, no. Oh please, no, not that, please, no._ He felt himself choke on something, and Sansa startled. Ned swallowed back bile, but motioned for her to continue.

“Joffrey made me look. He wanted me to cry, I think.” She wasn’t shaking; her voice didn’t even tremble. Catelyn, though, was crying, and Ned was doing everything in his power to stop his own tears. “But I didn’t. I thought, ‘He can make me look, but he can’t make me see them.’ And I didn’t. It was just…” she shrugged. She would tell her parents, but maybe she was unwilling to subject them to a more detailed description, for which Ned was cravenly grateful. “It didn’t even look like you.

“It made him angry when I didn’t scream or weep. So, he tried Septa Mordane next. And then he told me that he’d saved a spot for my traitor brother, for when his Uncle Jaime gave him Robb’s head. And I told him that maybe Robb would give me his. He had Ser Meryn hit me for that.” Ned sensed that it would not be the only time Joffrey had done so.

“And you tried to kill him then?” Catelyn asked quietly.

Sansa nodded. “Or at least, I thought about it. The inner wall had no parapets, just a drop. And I realized, I could do it. I didn’t even care if I went over with him. But then the Hound walked in front of me, and gave me something to dab up the blood from my lip. And the moment was gone.”

Her tale only grew worse from there.

His daughter was surrounded by enemies that would kill her from the wrong word, murmuring platitudes of her love for Prince Joffrey. His daughter wasbeaten regularly for her brother’s victories (“Though not by Sandor”, she said, as if that somehow made it better, “Sandor would never hurt me”). His daughter, stripped half-naked in front of the court and shamed, nearly raped in riots, on and on and on it went, and if he were not playing the part of “Father” he would have wept for it.

She spoke of the wedding she could barely remember for how terrified she was. Ned’s fists were clenched so hard that they turned white. It should not have been a mercy that she was not raped that night – he had to thank the gods that his enemies were not fully monsters. If Tyrion Lannister had taken his “rights”, no-one would have raised a complaint.

“Tyrion tried to be kind to me, though I didn’t thank him for it at the time,” said Sansa. “But I couldn’t trust him.”

“You aren’t obligated to feel kindly towards anyone for showing you basic human decency,” he said.

Sansa told of how Littlefinger smuggled her out of King’s Landing, and into the Eyrie. Baelish, it seemed, was behind more than just the betrayal of the goldcloaks – the death of Jon Arryn by Cat’s sister lay at his feet, not the Lannisters. Baelish killed Lysa, who he claimed to love; he convinced the Eyrie’s maester to slowly poison Robyn Arryn; he _desired_ Sansa for himself.

And he sold her to Ramsay Bolton.

Jon recounted his tale reluctantly at times; Arya had been tight-lipped, but Sansa had told them almost everything…until they reached that night, and her words failed. “He – “ she tried to say, but the words died in her throat. She took a deep breath, and began again.  She trembled more fiercely with each word. “He was a monster. He liked knives, and his hounds – he liked hunting down serving girls with them in the Wolfswood. Sometimes he showed me parts of what was left. And what he did to Theon- I thought I _hated_ Theon, but the time Ramsey was done with him, he wasn’t _Theon_ anymore. And he, he – _Mama, Papa, he-“_

By then she was unable to speak for the strength of her sobs. Catelyn wrapped their daughter in her arms and rocked her as she cried. That was all they could possibly do for her – Ned feared to even touch her when she was in such a state, not without her permission, for fear of startling her and bringing more unwelcome memories to life. Instead, he forced himself to do nothing more than wrap a blanket around her shoulders. Ned cried with her, he could not help it.

He hadn’t known it was possible for a heart to break so completely and still beat.

Ned didn’t know how long it was before she calmed enough to continue and tell her of her escape with Theon and her reunion with Jon, who forgave her for all of her misguided childhood cruelties. “I missed him in King’s Landing, but I don’t think I understood how horrible we were to him, until I was Alayne Stone,” she said, looking pointedly at her mother, “I worried that he would still hate me, but he never did.”

Their daughter became a leader, and rallied the North and the Vale to her cause. Brienne was right. A good many women would have been broken for having experienced so much cruelty, and Ned would have not blamed them. But Sansa was a Stark of Winterfell, and she was strong.

“I thought than Jon would have killed Ramsay himself, but he knew that his death was mine. I had the jailers put him in the kennels,” said Sansa, the hardened woman who had once begged him for pretty dresses and minstrel’s songs. Her smile was as cold as ice, so strange on the face he knew that it froze Ned’s heart. “He died screaming.”

And Eddard Stark, champion of truth of justice that he had been, was glad for it. “Good,” he said softly. “He deserved more.”

And yet, in his heart, he mourned the little girl that he had once danced with, who had dreamed of knights of valor and chivalry. _Maybe I will see her again,_ Ned thought, _one day when the world is kinder._

-

There was some time remaining before the council meeting, though not much. Ned wished he could take no part in it. He was heart-sick and weary, and wished nothing more than to lie down to sleep, and wake in a time where his children all still breathed, boys were not forced to become kings, and girls could remain girls for a time longer. But he had no such luxury.

There came a knock at the door. For a moment, Ned wondered if he would have to hide in his own (former) bedchamber. Arya’s voice from the hallway removed this concern. “Sansa, can I speak to you for a moment?”

Sansa strode to the door and opened it, but instead of coming in, Arya pulled her into the hallway, shutting the door behind her. Ned’s brow furrowed. _More secrets?_

“Do you think something is wrong?” asked Cat in a hushed tone.

“I don’t know,” said Ned. Had they been seen? Through the door he could hear a hushed conversation, or perhaps and argument, being held, too indistinct for him to make out. He tried to repress the urge to put his ear to the door like he’d caught his children doing so many times.

Though it was only a few minutes, at most, the time seemed to stretch until the door opened again. In walked Sansa, looking some mixture of exasperated, yet pleased, Arya, who appeared uncharacteristically nervous. And with them was a young, broad-chested man with black hair and bright blue eyes.

“Gendry Waters?” Ned said, surprised. Though he was glad to see the boy was well, he wasn’t sure why Arya had chosen to make this introduction _now,_ of all times. He was unmistakably his father’s son.

“It’s Gendry _Baratheon_ , now, actually,” said Arya firmly. “Or it will by, soon enough.”

Ned rose to great him, holding out a hand for him to shake. “You’re the reason why Arya rushed off to the smithy, aren’t you?” he asked, making the connection.

“Yes, m’lord,” said Gendry, taking a bit too long to find the simple words. He looked like he was about to face a charging cavalry, instead of his absent father’s best friend. His handshake was strong, though.

Catelyn, likewise, greeted him politely, telling him that she any son of Robert’s was a friend of their family. She hid her irritation well, but Ned, having been wed to her for sixteen years, knew that she would rather have these moments alone with her daughters. “Arya has spoken well of you,” his wife continued. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise, m’lady,” said Gendry, bowing. A moment of awkward silence fell, in which Ned and Catelyn tried to find polite words to ask why he was in their company at the moment, and presumably the other party tried to explain.

“We’re going to all be very busy in the next coming weeks, so I – Gendry and I,” said Arya, glancing at the boy, “We wanted to do this now.” She took a deep breath. “See, we’ve decided to get married.”

_What._

Ned could not have been entirely successful at keeping the shock from her face. Catelyn went stiff beside him. Which, in turn, made Arya only more determined. His future son looked first dismayed, then hesitated, realized he was in for a penny, in for a crown, now, and then took up a similar stubborn expression. Sansa, however, just sighed, and like she was mentally preparing for the storm that would inevitably follow Arya’s words.

For a moment, Ned’s mind went completely blank - and then began working madly as a hundred thoughts clamored for his attention. He’d barely met the boy. Arya was supposed to marry a high lord that could support her and make her happy. Arya was supposed to _want_ to marry a high lord that could support her and make her happy, which was clearly never going to happen. Arya was supposed to be _twelve years old,_ years away from being wed! When had she started having a romantic interest in boys!

Catelyn’s mouth opened, closed. Opened again. Finally, she managed, “Gendry, I apologize, but you understand that this has been a difficult time for my family. Would you excuse us a moment alone with our daughter?”

Gendry was just beginning to say “Yes” when Arya cut him off. “Gendry’s my family, too. He’s not leaving.” There was a fierceness to her eyes that did not bode well. He recognized it from when she’d opened her door with Needle in her hand - it was a look that said, quite clearly, ‘This is mine, and you can’t take it from me, but if you try I will never let you forget it’.

Catelyn grudgingly accepted this, thought for a moment, and then said, “Gendry, I am sure you are a fine young man,”- words that would not reassure any young suitor, though Ned understood her reluctance and admitted to sharing it, until he knew the boy further. Gendry’s jaw tightened. His expression said that he had been expecting this. “But Arya,” Cat continued, turning to their youngest daughter, “Tell me first that this isn’t to gain the Stormland’s support.”

“I’m not going to marry him for the _Stormlands,”_ retorted Arya immediately, at the same as Gendry started off with an aghast “I would _never”,_ while Sansa, the most incensed of all of them, said, seething, “You think that I would _sell off my own_ \- “

“ _I do not,”_ said Catelyn, raising her hands in a placating gesture, “suggest anything, I would just like to know your reasons. That is all.”

“It’s not that we think poorly of him, quite the opposite,” Ned said quickly _._ “It’s just…this is very…unexpected,” he finished lamely, and winced. _What an impression we’re making on him._

 “I realize that, Lord Stark,” said Gendry, making a valiant attempt to join the conversation, “I know I can’t be, well, what you imagined for your daughter.” And there, Ned saw in him hints of a self-depreciation similar to Jon’s: the knowledge he was standing in a room full of people who, as far as the world was concerned, were his betters.

Catelyn sighed. “I’ll admit I never imagined you marrying a blacksmith.” Or a bastard, which she was surely thinking.

Arya looked ready to make some comment, but evidently thought better of it when Sansa shook her head, a fact for which Ned was grateful.

Unsure of how to diffuse the situation and what might make Arya even _more_ defensive, Ned turned to Sansa. “You approve of this?”

He was entirely unprepared to make his own judgement of Gendry. The whole situation was absurd. Ned and Catelyn’s concern had always been finding a lord willing to accept Arya’s wildness, or in the case of Cat (Ned had all but given up), to turn their head-strong daughter into a lady. They’d never imagined that it would be Arya would be the one to convince them of her suitor’s worthiness, and not the other way around.

Sansa nodded without hesitation. “Gendry is a good and honest man, and I have met enough dishonest men to be a good judge of them by now, I believe. He didn’t turn Arya over to the Lannisters, and he saved Jon’s life after having just met him. I trust him. And Arya is a grown woman.” Arya gave her a small smile, which she returned. “What right do I have to stop her from being happy? Besides, I don’t think anyone can stop her. Do you?”

“No,” said Ned, “I don’t think we can.” It was easier to smile than he thought it would be, despite his nerves. Gendry Baratheon’s character, and his children’s trust in it, had undergone its trial by fire and come through the flames unscorched, which would have to be enough for Ned to trust him, even if his emotions hadn’t quite made peace with giving his daughter away yet.

More importantly, he knew Arya, and had seen enough to know that no high lord would ever make her happy. After Sansa’s travesty of a marriage, he could not force either of his daughters to take a husband against their will – and in Arya’s case, it undoubtedly would be. She was not like Lyanna in every respect – he doubted she would elope.

What she _would_ do was marry him anyway and then announce it in the Great Hall for all to hear.

 _Somewhere,_ Ned thought, _Lyanna is laughing at me._

Ned got up and moved to stand in front of Gendry, looking him in the eyes. “Do you love my daughter?”

“Yes,” said Gendry, forgoing formal address. “Yes, more than anything.”

Ned exchanged a glance with his wife, who still looked much troubled. Hesitantly, she nodded a sign of acceptance. “Then you have my blessing,” said Ned, clasping one of Gendry’s hands.  “Welcome to the family.”

Gendry’s jaw dropped, disbelieving. Before he could utter a word, though, Arya grasped the collar of Gendry’s tunic and was pulling him in for a kiss that lasted a bit _too_ long for Ned’s taste. That done, she released her betrothed and embraced first her father, and then her mother.

Holding her at arm’s length, Catelyn laughed. “I’ll get to plan your wedding,” she said, probably trying to not to focus on their daughter’s choice in husband.  That would be a topic for later. One of many.

Ned smiled. Silently, though, he prayed that Arya and Gendry would not meet Robb and Talisa’s end.

-

Soon, Gendry returned to the forges, and Arya and Sansa snuck their parents through carefully deserted hallways to the council chambers. The way they snuck him around made him feel like a thief, and he looked forward to the end of this charade.

 When Arya told her older brother the news of her upcoming wedding (a _very_ recent decision, Ned realized), Jon lifted the girl off her feet and swung her around like he had when she was a child. The Queen’s own smile made her features youthful and less worn, and Ned, too, felt something in himself ease at the sight.

As Jon pestered Arya with a number of questions, from “Did Father cry” (“No, he was too shocked”) to “You’re not going to wear a dress, are you?”, Ned inspected the intricate maps strewn across the stone table in the middle of the room. No matter how many wolf and dragon markers were placed around Winterfell (and there were not nearly as many as Ned would have liked), the enemy forces arranged in a blockade to the North and the lions gathering in the South painted a bleak picture.

From the topic alone, it would be the most unusual council meeting Ned had ever attended, and from Sansa’s descriptions, the councilors themselves were only slightly less unusual.

Jon and Daenery’s advisors were a far cry from the wealthy highborn men that Ned would have expected to hold high positions at King’s Landing. Instead, they were men and women, highborn outcasts and lowborn ex-smugglers, Wildlings, and slaves that had never expected to see the inside of castle walls.

 

Bran was rolled in on a wheeled-chair by a portly young man in the black cloak of the Night’s Watch, who was introduced by Jon as Samwell Tarly. Ned had thought that the eldest Tarly son was Dickon Tarly, but made no mention of it. The Wildling, a fierce older man named Tormund that looked more apt to break heads than use his, arrived next, with Lord Commander Edd Tollet of the Night’s Watch.

“But we call him Dolorous Edd,” said Jon.

“Fuckin’ figures,” said Edd, looking dolefully at Ned. “I predicted it, didn’t I Sam? I told you that they’d come up with a way to keep working us after we’ve died. I’ll be next, as I wasn’t the first. I should have never encouraged the practice.”

It was easy to see how he’d gotten the nickname.

The Onion Knight greeted them both good-naturedly and apologized about how they were being dragged into “this mess”. Missandei and Grey-Worm, however, made their introductions with a practiced formality that Ned suspected had been beaten into them with whips. The thought made him uneasy. Lord Varys and Tyrion Lannister entered the last of all.

Suspiciously absent from the room, was Jaime Lannister. _Coward._

Tyrion shut the door, took one look at Ned and Catelyn, and sighed. Then he walked over to the decanter of wine, poured himself a generous glass, downed it, and poured another.

“Your father never drank during meetings,” commented Arya.

“My father would have made an exception,” Tyrion replied.  The war had not treated him kindly – there was a scar across the ridge of his nose, and a seriousness about him that had not been present when Ned had met him in Winterfell. “I see you’ve been successful,” he said, looking at Jon. “Nice to see you again, Lady Catelyn. You look as beautiful as ever.”

“I’m charmed,” said Catelyn, tone icy. The tension in the room could be cut with a knife.

Lord Varys’s voice was as unassuming as ever. Ned wondered how many people he actually fooled with that act. “An unexpected blessing,” said the Master of Whispers, and Ned could not tell if it was a lie. “Lord Stark, you can not know how sorry I am. If I had known what Joffrey intended to do – “

“Would you have changed anything?” asked Ned, cutting.

“Perhaps,” said Varys, “perhaps not. Whatever I had chosen, I doubt it could have been much better than what befell the realm afterwards. I wanted peace.” The man sighed heavily. “But war, it seems, was inevitable.”

“And my daughter?” Ned said acidly.

“Plans were made. They failed.”

“Enough of this,” said Daenerys. “We can argue on the past later; now is the time for planning ahead.”

“Woman’s right,” said Tormund, “Those dead fuckers will be marching here now that you’ve gone and spoiled the Night King’s plan.”

Bran, leaning over the map near the blank, vaguely detailed area marked as the Land of Always Winter, spoke up. “I can’t spy on the Night King, but the dragon is still in his fortress. He hasn’t flown south yet.” he said. Daenerys clenched her fist at the mention of the dragon, so hard her knuckles turned white. “But he will soon.”

“We’ve done all we can for the moment to prepare for the Night Kings,” said Tyrion, “We have more immediate problems.” He raised his glass in Ned and Catelyn’s direction.

“Tyrion is right,” said Arya. “We can’t keep you hidden for long. The watchmen have already begun spreading rumors that Rhaegal returned carrying two more riders than he left with.”

“And the contents of these rumors?” asked Sansa.

“The two most popular are that either the King returned with wights of some significance,” said Lord Varys, “though _what_ significance is a subject of speculation, or that he returned with Wildling survivors. Another says that you picked up warriors from other keeps on the journey. The most outrageous is that you’ve captured the Night King.” Tormund scoffed at this last suggestion; Jon looked like he wished that had indeed been the case.

“But none have guessed the truth,” said Ned.

“This is one case where the truth is so absurd that none would dream of it,” said Lord Varys, “But we can’t hope to keep your resurrection hidden.” Nor would Ned wish to. He disliked having to skulk in the shadows of his own home, unseen. Doubtless Cat felt similarly.

“Then we tell them the truth,” said Bran flatly. “Most of them have guessed my abilities, even if we have not confirmed it. We’ll present my Mother and Father to the Northern Lords tonight in the Great Hall.”

There were a few nods of agreement, but Varys, Sansa, and Tyrion looked troubled. “The lords were halfway to committing treason from news about Jon,” she said. “If you tell them we’ve been using blood magic to resurrect the dead, the uproar will only get worse.”

“Do we have much of a choice?” countered Arya. Sansa sighed audibly, then reluctantly nodded in agreement.

Ned, himself, was confused. “But haven’t the lords already accepted your use of magic to, well…” he trailed off, looking at Jon.

Jon sighed and shifted uncomfortably. “They don’t know.”

 “You son has been rather tight-lipped where that’s concerned,” said Ser Davos.

“We tried telling them,” said Tormund, “but you damned Southroners wouldn’t trust a damn thing we said even if the truth stabbed them in the gut.”

Ned was nearly taken aback. “They named you king, thinking you broke your vows?” Jon looked away, perhaps shamed. Ned did not think he had reason to be, but that was a discussion for another time.

Davos shrugged. “The North’s memory seems to be rather selective at times.”

“Then we tell them that as well,” said Daenerys. Her demeanor was commanding, but one of her hands had clasped Jon’s and was squeezing it gently. “The North will see that you came back whole, and be reassured. Lord Commander, you will corroborate the story. Little though it may be, the Night’s Watch still holds some respect in the North.” Edd nodded, as did Sam, though he had been addressed, nor been at the Wall when Jon had died.

When Jon still hesitated, Sam spoke up. “Jon. It’s not as if we have any other historical precedent.”

“Unless you count Beric,” said Arya, “Which won’t do anything to reassure anyone, because by his own admission, less and less of him came back each time.” The words sent a chill down Ned’s spine. Had he left a portion of his soul in King’s Landing?

“This has the potential to explode in our faces. _And_ it only solves one problem while creating twenty more,” said Tyrion. “There’s succession for Winterfell, for one thing. And this will only cause more upheaval about how the North fits in to the new Targaryen dynasty.”

“That can wait until the Night King is defeated,” said Jon firmly.

Tyrion sighed with the air of man who had become accustomed to this response, but did not agree with it. “Well,” he said, conceding, “The discussion will be easier to have then, at any rate. One look at those dead men and the smallfolk will be hailing you as your namesake and his Good Queen Alysanne come again.” He sipped his wine, and his brow furrowed. “Though, the Queen Daenerys is more intimidating than Queen Alysanne, even if their sympathies lay in similar places…Good King Jon, then?” The Queen raised an eyebrow, but looked pleased at the comparison.

“Daenerys the Conqueror and her Good King Jon,” said Arya proudly.

“What of the Queen’s forces?” asked Catelyn, bringing the conversation back on course. Ned realized that while they had been focused on the North’s reaction, none of them had thought of the men under Daenerys’s control. “Will they have a negative reaction to this…magic?”

The Queen in question looked like she resented the necessity of Catelyn’s presence in the room. “My forces will not care,” said Daenerys, “They follow me without question.” Her overconfidence was troubling – there was no force that followed any leader completely without question.

“How can you be sure?” pressed Catelyn. Her experience with young monarchs and the betrayal of their bannermen (a thought that twisted Ned’s heart) doubtless made her do so, but Daenerys only bristled further, her frown deepening.

“My Queen is correct,” said Grey Worm, speaking for the first time. “The Dothraki follow strength. They may whisper, but if her Khal is strong enough to bring back the dead they will follow him.”

“There are still those among the freedmen who name Her Grace ‘Mhysa’”, said Missandei. “After the Battle of the Bay of Dragons, and the city’s freedom was assured, they will follow her to the ends of the earth. They already have.” Their loyalties were more assured than that of sell-swords like Cersei’s, and perhaps even the smallfolk that marched under the Northern banners, even in Robert’s day, Ned realized. If she was all that Jon claimed she was, and if her goals were as pure as she said, if she could be more than a conqueror, Daenerys Targaryen was a monarch that could win the hearts of her people, as well as their swords.

Provided that she lived to accomplish it.

There was one more concern. “And your brother?” he asked Tyrion.

“Has been made aware of the situation,” said Tyrion, hiding a wince in his glass of wine. “He decided that this meeting would go rather poorly if it began with your sword through his neck.” Damn the man, but he was right. Ned may not have killed him outright, but the desire to would result in nothing less than a lengthy argument and the Lannister breaking several bones. “But you’ll have the Lannister’s swords, the few of them that are here.” The rest of the room made signs of agreement, and Ned forced himself to trust their judgement.

The next hour was spent hammering out the details of how much they could tell the Lords of the North, how to present Ned and Catelyn to them, and what they should say to assure them of their monarchs’ commitment to their people in the coming war. _The dead are marching,_ thought Ned, _and I am_ still _entrenched in politics._ They all were, though the commanders of this battle seemed not to be Jon or Daenerys, but Sansa and Tyrion.

Sansa spoke of the following address like a general planning her next battle with a shrewdness that was almost uncanny in one so young. It had not taken Ned long to realize that he made a poor politician, and was therefore not the best judge of the subject, but it was easy to see that given time, she would easily surpass the skill of her mother in that regard.

It was easy to feel proud of her, but underneath that, with her story still fresh in his mind, he wondered just how many of Baelish’s teachings had taken root.

When it came time for the various advisors to depart, Daenerys motioned for Ned to stay behind. “I would speak to you in private,” she said.

Jon looked concerned, but his wife smiled at him reassuringly, and he, after a quick kiss on Daenerys’s cheek, left the two of them alone.

Ned felt awkward as silence fell. After a moment that seemed longer than it actually was, Daenerys stepped around the stone table that lay between them to stand closer to Ned. “I wanted to thank you,” said Daenerys. “For trying to save my life.”

It took a moment for Ned to recall the incident she spoke of. “You were just an innocent girl,” he said. _Regardless of what you would grow into._ “And whatever I might have said, I failed. The assassination was ordered anyway. What I did for you was too little – any decent man would have done the same.”

 “Then there are precious few decent men,” said Daenerys. “For I know of very few that would have defied their king and friend to protect a stranger.”

Ned wanted to believe that she was wrong, but could not argue. “On his deathbed, King Robert rescinded the order,” he said instead. He felt the need to defend his friend, when no one else could.

“And if he was not on his deathbed?” asked Daenerys, “Would he have had such a change of heart, if that were not the case?”

“No,” Ned admitted. Robert was much too proud, too hateful and fearful of Rhaegar’s shadow for that in life.

Daenerys nodded, expecting the answer. “Were you thinking of Jon, when you refused him?”

“Yes,” Ned said. It was good to admit it, finally. “I had always wondered if I had been wrong to hide him from Robert. I thought that perhaps he had loved Lyanna enough to love Jon too, or at least forgive him.” But Robert had not even remembered what she looked like. He had been forced to confront the fact that Robert had never loved Lyanna, not truly – he wanted the challenge of taming her. Robert fixated on her like a child that desired the toy he could not have, simply because it was denied to him.

“But Robert proved your sister right, in the end,” said Daenerys.

Ned nodded. Yes, Robert had proved that he would have killed a child in the womb for having dragon’s blood, and the guilt Ned felt for hiding Jon from his friend died that day.

“That is not all I wanted to thank you for, though,” said Daenerys, "You can not, can _not,_ imagine what was like, to learn that I was not alone.”

Ned thought of his son, trailing behind his brothers, always on the periphery, no set place in the world. Alone, like Daenerys had been, but no longer. This felt like fate – two lost dragons, alone in the world, finding love and home in each-other’s arms. It made him want to believe in songs again.

Daenerys took his hands in hers, and said, in a near-whisper, choked with emotion, “ _Thank you.”_

Her gratefulness made him uncomfortable – he had always wanted to do more. “Jon is of my blood. I would defend him until my last breath,” said Ned.

She released his hands and laughed under her breath. “My brother called you the Usurper’s dog, you know. He told me that your heart was a frozen as the North, and I believed him. Even when Ser Barristan said you argued against my assassination, I thought it had been a trick. Just crocodile’s tears.

“It was easier to believe that I had been wronged and that you were a traitor, meeting a traitor’s end, than to accept my family’s wrongdoing,” she finished. Ned was taken aback; he fought not to flinch. The Queen that had once hated him, that now carried a child that was to be named for him, shook her head. “How wrong I was.”

“I wish your brother were here to know he was wrong as well” said Ned after regaining his composure.

“You should not be,” said Daenerys, “He would have had Jon killed, if he had known.”  Not an ounce of sorrow touched her voice. “He would have killed me, for taking his power from him. By the time he died, Viserys had not been my brother in a long, long time. He pressed knife to my swollen belly and threatened to cut my son out of me, if the Khal did not give him his army. My husband killed him instead, of course.

“It’s funny, isn’t it? He said you were a monster, but when your family was killed and you thought your sister had been raped, you stopped at nothing to save her. While Viserys, by his own admission, would have let my husband’s khalasar rape me, all forty thousand of them, along with their horses, if it would gain him the throne. It only took one man, in the end. But I am still breathing, and Viserys is not.”

Ned’s heart went out to this woman. He could not imagine holding a weapon to Lyanna; his mind rejected even the thought of it. “He was your brother in no more than blood.”

“You know more than most how much, and yet how little, blood can count for,” said Daenerys. Ned nodded, thinking of Jon. Then Daenerys took a deep breath, seeming to close herself off. Ned doubted that she shared so many details about herself with strangers. “I have kept you too long,” said Daenerys. “We both have to prepare for tonight.”

“Of course,” said Ned. “Thank you, Daenerys. I will not say I enjoyed our conversation, but I value your words a great deal.” He bid his new daughter farewell, and returned to the chamber he and his wife had been given to share.

-

Ned and his wife stood in a small chamber behind the high table in the Great Hall, listening to his bannermen roar at his children. He and Cat were garbed in the finest clothing could be found, and Ned suspected that the direwolf sigil embroidered on his fur cloak was his daughter’s work. Catelyn remained close enough to touch, and looked tense. “It will be fine, my love,” Ned told her.

“Then why do you look so nervous?” she joked. _I’ve recently had bad experiences with crowds,_ Ned almost said, but thought better of it.

Inside the hall, Jon and Bran were telling the lords of the North of their use of “substitutes” to foil the Night King’s plans. The lords were not relieved that it had been successful, in fact, the noise in the room only grew louder. “Who have you brought back,” yelled a voice – Lord Glover, who had wanted Sansa to take Jon’s place as regent. “Another damned dragon – Rhaegar Targaryen, perhaps? Or is it Aegon the Conqueror himself?” Countless voices raised to agree with his sentiment. Tyrion was right; the North had not taken Jon’s heritage well.

“No,” Jon yelled over the din. It placated the lords little. Ned expected him to say more. Instead, he heard footsteps coming closer, the door opened, and Davos Seaworth motioned for them to come forth. The noise from the other room quieted to murmurs as the crowd waited to see who would walk out. Ned glanced at his wife, and entered.

The Great Hall was packed wall to wall with people, and all of their eyes were fixed on Ned. Even from a distance, he saw some of their eyes widen in recognition as he strode to high table, where Jon and Daenerys stood aside, making room for him. Below the dais, jaws dropped. Men wearing Glover’s mailed fist, the Manderly’s merman, the Karstarks and Umbers and mountain clansmen, Tully men from the Riverlands and Royce men from the Vale, and yes, even some of those in the small contingent wearing Lannister gold, gasped in shock.

Mutters broke out, moving through the crowd like a wave. “It can’t be,” some said, not realizing they were speaking aloud, disbelieving the proof of their eyes. “Not possible,” they said; “Lord Stark _,_ ” gasped others, “That’s Eddard and Catelyn Stark!”; Others were whispering, “Their necks – look at their necks!”, and Ned became deeply aware of the livid scar there. At the Tully table, Edmure lurched to his feet, his sister’s name on his lips. From the back of the room, Jaime Lannister watched the proceedings with grave eyes. Only one group was unaffected – the fierce men and women in worn, unadorned furs that Ned assumed were the Wildlings.

From the middle of the room, a girl of no more than thirteen that Ned did not recognize, stepped up on one of the benches so she stood out from the crowd. Her clear voice cut through the murmuring like a knife. “Do I have the honor of addressing Lord Eddard Stark?”

An abrupt, tense silence filled the room. Ned took a breath and steadied himself. “You do.”

The shocked silence endured only a moment longer, broken only by a hundred gasps.

The following roar was deafening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does count as a cliffhanger? I'm not sure.
> 
> Second, things between him and the younger generation are mostly okay so far, but the road going forward will still be rocky. 
> 
> So far, he's really trying to see the changes in a positive light. But things are going to get harder before the impact of what's happened to all of his children really sinks in. He's proud of Sansa's political acumen, and (though he will probably feel some conflicting emotions about whether or not he should feel guilty about his lack of judgement on it) really can't fault her for feeding her rapist to dogs. But he hasn't seen how politically ruthless she can be. He doesn't know that his daughter-in-law has an extremely black and white worldview that includes crucifying slavers and burning people alive (I love Dany with all my heart, but that isn't exactly justice). Jon and his values are more closely aligned, but Jon has had to make compromises and do things that no parent would want their kid to have to make. 
> 
> And Ned sure as _hell_ doesn't know that his youngest daughter is an assassin that literally peels the faces from her victims. That's freaky as hell.
> 
> Also, I've been thinking of doing a section (not the one immediately following this chapter, but some of it) in Cat's POV, because she's here and why not.
> 
> Hopefully nobody was too OOC here. Let me know what you think!


	4. The Blade that was Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Why here?" Cersei Lannister asked as she stood over him.  
>  "So the gods can see. _ \- A Game of Thrones
> 
> The Northern lords get a surprise. Ned and Cat have visiting to do. And there is a confrontation in the godswood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry (again) for the late update - I severely underestimated how much finals week and post-finals Christmas-y type activities would affect my writing schedule. Hope you guys enjoy it.
> 
> Unrelated, but I've decided to do my level best to name as many chapters as possible after lines LotR poetry. Is this the best naming scheme? Probably not. But I'm doing it anyway.

There were so many voices clamoring for his attention, he could barely make out individual words. He saw Edmure start to make his way forward through the throng of people, but then the Tully man looked at Catelyn, and must have seen something in her eyes that made him think better of it. The Mormont girl whose name he did not know remained standing on the table, crossing her arms, a satisfied gleam to her eyes. Some of the lords and their men shouted in celebration. Lord Manderly, for one, was roaring to the surrounding men that the rest of the lot had been fools to think it could have been anyone else – the Starks of Winterfell were of the North, and the North remembers its own. However, a good many of the lord still looked disbelieving, perhaps even fearful.

Ned waited for the initial outburst to die down, and when it did not, then raised his hands to indicate that he would like to speak. It still took at least full minute until the room became silent again. “I am, indeed, Eddard Stark of Winterfell,” he said, trying not to remember when he said such similar words not so long ago. “One day ago, from my remembering, I was executed at the Sept of Baelor. But when the sword came down, I found myself waking North of the Wall. What your King and my children say is true.”

There was more that he had planned to say – his words having been painstakingly decided upon by the council beforehand – but a voice called out from the crowd, interrupted him. One of the smallfolk, so concerned that he decided to make a brave foray into politics, from the low-class accent. “How do we know you’re actually Ned Stark, and not some demon of the enemy?”

Silence fell again, but he could sense the tension within the hall, all asking themselves the same question. Ned could not blame them, as he had pondered it himself, thinking of all the fairy tales of men that come back from the gods twisted and strange. Another voice from the back of the room added to the first. “He was _dead_ , and we’re supposed to put our faith in him _?”_

Ned scrambled for a response. He’d had years of practice addressing his people, but recent events had obviously thrown him off-balance.

Luckily, Ser Davos came to his aide.

“You already placed your faith in such a man when you swore your swords to Jon Snow,” he said confidently. “Did you think that a man raised by Ned Stark would forsake the vows he swore in front of his gods? All of you must have heard the rumors. A mutiny ended Jon Snow’s Watch, and yet he stands before you today.”

Once again, the room was shocked. “Is this true, Your Grace?” asked Tytos Blackwood. Though of the Riverlands, Jaime Lannister had his small force pass by Raventree hall on its journey northward, remembering that the Blackwoods had been the last force to declare for Prince Tommen. A fortunate decision, given the houses’ strong ties with the Targaryens.

“Aye,” said Jon, “It’s true. My brothers killed me, and the Lady Melissandre brought me back not two nights later.”

“I helped carry his body myself,” said Dolorous Edd. Rumblings of agreement came from the other Night’s Watchmen, as well as the Wildlings. There were about fifty or sixty in the hall, in total, enough that the claim could not be dismissed outright.

Some of the men were harder to convince. “I will not deny what my eyes see,” said Lord Glover, “That indeed is Ned Stark, or something that looks look him. But of _your_ resurrection, I have no proof.” Ned scoffed, as did many others. “The Night’s Watch is not what it used to be. Your support comes from thieves and savages.”

More than a third of the room broke out in shouts at the words, including said “thieves and savages”, as well as Yohn Royce and significant amount of the Northern lords – whether because of the insult to the Watch or for the support of their king, he could not tell.

They’d had the foresight to prepare for this, however.

In lieu of response, Jon removed his cloak, handing it to a waiting Daenerys, who stood near her husband, staring defiantly out at the malcontents. Jon had purposely foregone his usual armor tonight. He undid the top buttons of his doublet and shirt, and pulled them to the side to reveal the deep, crescent-shaped scar that lay directly above his heart. “Is this sufficient evidence, Lord Glover?”

Lord Glover sat back down.

“I kept this from you all to avoid these same accusations. Nor did I want your support because you thought me some sort of miracle. I was brought back because we are at war, against the living, and the dead,” said Jon, growing more confident with every word. “Whatever you say about me, I am no demon, or god, I am a mortal man. And so are Eddard and Catelyn Stark.”

Ned saw some of the anger in fear in many of the lords lessen, to be replaced with a strange sort of awe. Jon began re-buttoning his shirt, and nodded at Ned, indicating for him to speak.

“My lords, I understand that many of you will have questions, including that of the succession of Winterfell, now that I have returned.” There were nods from throughout the hall. “Your King and Queen, as well as Lady Sansa, have asked me to return to my place as Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.” This had been a topic of some discussion at the council. Ned could tell that Sansa was uneasy to give up her position of power, having been powerless for so long. But all had decided that returning Ned to the position would be too popular a choice to go against. But Ned had insisted that he could not take up the position of Hand of the King once again, having done so poorly in the office.

“I have bent the knee to their Graces, Jaehaerys Stark Targaryen and Daenerys Targaryen, rightful King and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.”  There is another wave of talk at this, some approving, some not. Some of the lords and their men sighed like they expected nothing less from Ned Stark, others sat back with arms crossed and stormy expressions.

“And has that always been your plan?” asked Lord Royce, looking between Ned and Jon. “His “Grace” tells us he knew nothing of his true parentage. Is this true?”

Something oddly like vertigo came over him as the secret he would have died to protect was voiced aloud. _I’m sorry Lyanna. I tried._ “It’s true,” he said, “Until a month ago, your King believed that he was indeed my illegitimate son. I never intended him to take the Iron Throne. Robert Baratheon was my King, and I loved him like a brother. I would not have betrayed him in such a way.”

“You already betrayed him by harboring a dragon in your home!” someone yelled.

Something inside him snapped. “Yes, I did!” he nearly yelled. “I protected an innocent babe, my own blood, because the sister I loved placed him in my arms and begged me to do what she could not, and keep him from the fate that befell his brother and sister in King’s Landing. I find no shame in that.” The room was so silent Ned could have heard a pin drop. Some of the men that had been scowling had the decency to look shamed. Ned didn’t have to turn to know that Jon is trying to hide his gratitude.

“I did not think that my nephew would ever claim his birthright. I would have pledged my sword to Stannis Baratheon,” he continued, feeling like he was betraying Robb by admitting it, “And I would have been wrong to place my faith in a man that spent his last days murdering his own child.

“But none of this, succession or Kings, what would have been, matters. We stand here, bickering over the past and who sits on a throne that lies hundreds of miles to the South, when the real danger lies to the North. I have fought many battles, but none so terrible as what I faced yesterday. I have seen the enemy, my lords. I have seen our King and my daughter destroy creatures from legend that brought cold and death with them. Without the dragon, we would have been lost. The Targaryens, their dragons, and their armies are the _only_ way the North will survive the coming Night.”

His audience sat in rapt attention. The support he was buying his son was temporary, at best, but Ned was in agreement with Tyrion that once the Army of the Dead reached them, the North would forget any qualms they had about Targaryen rule.

By then, they would have much more dire concerns.

Jon was quick to capitalize on Ned’s momentum. “Lord Stark is right. Winter is coming for us all.” His words were somber; his bannermen nodded grimly. “But it is not yet here,” he continued, more triumphantly. “Today is a victory for the North. Today, a great wrong to House Stark has been righted.” Cheering came from the crowd – where minutes ago there had been glares, now there was applause. “And when the Night King does come, we will meet him with fire and blood.” The lower tables roared their agreement. Ned knew that many cheered for his own return rather than their King; their gazes still fixed on him. But others…

Ned was more caught up in the way the others, the Manderlys and the Mormonts and Blackwoods and soldiers throughout the hall, cheered not just for Ned’s return, but for the man who had led the force that brought him back. Who, at every other feast Ned had held in Winterfell, would have been down there with them.

When they looked at Jon, they looked like they believed in his coming victory. Like some of them would die to ensure it.

Like he was their King.

-

They returned to their chamber’s soon after, avoiding the Lords for the time being and excusing themselves from the Hall to rest after a long and trying day. Too tired to do anything but rest, Ned and Catelyn discarded their clothes on the floor and slid under the covers. The day’s events had exhausted him; Ned was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

His sleep was not dreamless.

He watched his twelve-year old daughter practice with her dancing master, listening to the _clack_ of wooden practice swords. Syrio Forel’s wooden sword skimmed along Arya’s and pushed it away. The tip of the practice blade rested against her throat. “Dead,” said the dancing master. Arya scowled, the look of determination endearing in one so small, and began again. A spin around her, and the blade halted an inch before her eye. “Dead.”

The wooden swords clacked. Arya’s flew from her grasp and clattered against floor. “ _Dead,”_ said Syrio Forel, and his sword, suddenly live steal, cut deep into Arya’s belly. She fell, gasping and gutted, to the stones.

 Ned heard himself scream. Syrio Forel disappeared; Ned ran forward and pressed his hands to Arya’s belly, desperate to stop the flow of blood. It spilled out around his fingers. _“Please,”_ Ned begged, not who to, as Arya gasped her last.

The body became Rickon’s, toddler-small and dying, grasping at the arrow-shaft that pierced through his heart from his back. “Papa, why are you leaving?” asked Rickon. Blood gurgled from his boy’s lips at the words. _The King needed me,_ Ned tried to say, but a toddler would not understand such things, and now, neither did Ned. Ned held his hand, looked up, called for help –

And saw only Robb standing there, torso stuck with spears like a pin-cushion, the ghastly, gore-spattered wolf’s head fixed gruesomely to their ends in place of his son’s own skull. “You taught me honor,” said the wolf in Robb’s voice, “Are you proud of me, father?” Its eyes were icy blue. The creature lunged forward, jaws opened in a snarl –

In the distance, Lyanna screamed his name. “ _Eddard!”_

Ned ran. He ran from the corpses of his children, like a coward; and they stumbled after him, screeching for his blood. He ran through the Great Hall of Winterfell, past little Aegon’s and Rhaeny’s bodies and the corpse of a foreign woman whose limp hands held a mangled babe with hair like Robb’s. He ran past the burning keep and the kennels, where Sansa was feeding the hounds, and out of the gates, following his sister’s cries.

She waited for him in the snow.

Lyanna held her son in her lap, cradled him, sobbing. Jon was older than she would ever be; blood poured from the wounds in his chest, staining Lyanna’s gown and the pristine snow. _“_ You promised me _,”_ cried Lyanna. The thorns on her crown of winter roses were cutting deep into her skull. _“_ You promised me, Ned. _”_

“I did,” said Ned, an oathbreaker. He fell to his knees before her, numb.

That was when he realized the dead had joined them. When the shadow of one of the corpses fell over him, Ned did not attempt to defend himself. He let its sword slice through the air-

\- and he woke in a cold sweat, gasping.

-

He slept fitfully until morning, when he woke to his wife’s gentle but persistent kisses. He found himself kissing back, less chaste and more demanding, thinking of the months of long, lonely nights without her, and Catelyn responded in kind. And for a time, they forgot the world in favor of recalling the love they could show through their bodies.

Afterwards, Ned would have liked to just lie there in bed with her, but there was too much to be done that could not be ignored. They dressed reluctantly and got readied for the day ahead. Breakfast was delivered to their door, accompanied by a stack of letters from every lord currently housed in Winterfell, of which there were many. Ned put them aside; they could wait until he finished his eggs.

Catelyn put down her fork and cleared her throat. “The lords last night…”

Ned washed down his sausage with water. “We won them around, by the end,” he said, trying to focus on the cheers at the end of the gathering rather than the jeers at the beginning. “Jon and Daenerys will have their support for the coming war.”

Catelyn pursed her lips.

“What?” Ned asked.

“It reminds me of the way Robb’s men acted before they abandoned him,” said Catelyn. “Praising him one minute, doubting him the next. I worry that Jon and Daenerys don’t fully have their allegiance.  Have you considered that they may declare for you?”

Ned blanched. “I would refuse.” He wouldn’t have even been the Lord of Winterfell if Brandon had not died. That was enough responsibility. His months as Hand of the King had been the most stressful he’d had since Robert’s Rebellion. And his tenure in the position seemed to have done the realm little good. He doubted he would fare much better as a king.

“They did not give Robb a choice,” said Catelyn.

“It won’t come to that,” said Ned, trying to convince himself that her words were not true. He _would_ refuse, if it did, and they would have to accept. “We’ll convince the lords further, try to build their confidence. Your brother should be easy to convince, he may help.” Though according to Catelyn, Edmure was an idiot.

“And what of the Dothraki and the Wildlings?”

Ned frowned. “We need them.”

“I _know_ that,” said Catelyn. “But do the lords? And what shall we do with them after the war? Will they return to Essos and beyond the Wall? They’re savages, Ned. We’ve fought the Wildlings for thousands of years. I doubt that many will forget that.”

The same thought had been troubling him. From what Jon said, the Wildlings might not be fully uncivilized, or at least, the different tribes had achieved varying levels of civilization, but could they assimilate to the society south of the Wall? If they did not kneel, would they also refuse to change? And he knew nothing of the Dothraki except stories of hordes that swept across the land, leaving ruined villages in their wake. The Queen seemed to have them under control for now, but...

“We’ll have to trust that our children know what they are doing,” he said.

Catelyn sighed, but nodded. “We shouldn’t have to,” she said, almost mournfully. “They should be trusting _us._ Everything has turned backwards while we weren’t looking, hasn’t it?” Ned understood what she was speaking of. “I feel like I’m being bitter,” she continued, “The goal of any parent is to see their child stand on their own, and they have certainly done that.”

“But you wished it didn’t have to be like this,” Ned said softly. Not when the cost was so high. And the changes in his children were almost as frightening, for their strangeness, as they were admirable.  A brief silence fell as both of them reflected on that.

Catelyn sighed. “I should go help Sansa with her duties. She has enough on her plate; things will go easier if I share some of the burden. It is time to be the Lady of Winterfell again. And you should speak with your banners.”

“You won’t come with me?” he asked, frowning. He thought she could speak to the other ladies.

“I let the Kingslayer free,” she said bitterly. “I’ve already lost their trust.” Unfortunately, she was probably right.

“This afternoon,” Ned said, “There’s something we need to do first.”

“Yes,” his wife replied softly, “Yes, I think there is.”

-

The statue looked nothing like him. It appeared that the stonemason had a few descriptions of him, and had tried to copy the general look of the other Starks, but had never met Ned himself.

It was eerie, nonetheless. Ned now knew, perhaps better than anyone living, the pure feeling of _wrongness_ that people alluded to when they said they felt as if someone was walking on their grave.

As his breath frosted in the air of the crypts, he began to wonder. If he removed the stones and dug up the earth here, would he uncover his own grinning skull? He did not want to know. He and his wife stepped past his own tomb, continuing on to their sons’.

Robb’s must have been empty, but his siblings had commissioned him a statue nonetheless. The stonemason had done a better job with him and Rickon. Rickon, for they had a body, mangled though it might have been. Sansa had always been a decent hand at sketching; Ned wondered if she had drawn her elder brother from memory and had the stonemason use it as a reference. There was no statue, however, for Benjen Stark of the Night’s Watch. Having sworn away his place in the house of his birth, his sacrifice would likely remain unacknowledged in these crypts, though Ned wished otherwise.

He wished _all_ of this had been otherwise.

Robb’s familiar face was set in an regal, but stern, expression that was unfamiliar to Ned, and was the first statue in the line since Torrhen Stark to wear a crown. The wolf at his feet had its teeth pulled back, ready to snarl.

Even though he knew that the crown had killed him, Ned had felt a traitorous rush of pride when he’d seen the crown of swords upon the stone brow.

Rickon’s statue was not the pudgy toddler they remembered. He recognized the lines of his face, but it pained him, to have missed his son grow.

It pained him more that he would never grow to adulthood.

“I thought I had mourned Rickon already. And yet his death feels as fresh to me now as it did when I thought him dead by Theon’s hand,” said Catelyn hoarsely. She stepped forward and stroked the cheek of Rickon’s statue softly, like she had so often done to their living boy when he slept in the cradle. “He must have been so scared. He was all alone. He didn’t even have Shaggydog to protect him.”

Ned had been trying not to think of that. “At least he knew his family was coming for him,” he said, but it was a weak comfort. That might have been even more cruel – to have hope, and then for that hope to have been snatched away. He hated that he felt grateful that Rickon’s death was a quick one.

He stepped up beside her, and squeezed her hand. “We should have never gone South,” he said. He didn’t know who he was speaking to – Catelyn, or his sons. “We should have been there for them.” He closed his eyes tight against the welling tears.

He wanted his place to be exchanged with theirs. He wanted to weep until he could no more; he wanted to fall into the state of madness similar to that of Cat’s after Bran’s fall, blind to all but the tragedy that had befallen his sons, and his own grief.

But for the sake of his remaining children and his unborn grandson, he could not. He held on to those five points of light like a man lost in a cave would clutch at a torch for his survival.

Ned stepped up to stand beside Catelyn, blinking his tears away. “I’m sorry,” he told Bran and Rickon, knowing his words would never be enough. “We miss you. We love you still.”

Cat’s hand tightened around his. “Do you think they can hear us?” she asked. “I kept to the Seven; I expected Seven Heavens and Seven Hells. But I remember nothing.”

“I don’t think death is for the living to remember,” Ned told her. “I believe they’re out there, waiting for us.” It was a conclusion that he’d reached for the sake of his sanity. He could not fathom the alternative; they couldn’t just be _gone._

“I want to believe that, too,” said Cat. She let out a shuddering breath. “I want to believe – I have to believe that they’re a peace now.” She was silent for a long moment. “Do you remember,” she then began, “how Rickon used to toddle after Robb wherever he went?”

Ned smiled and nodded. Rickon had adored his eldest brother, and though Robb was getting to that age when teenagers had little time for their younger siblings, Ned could tell that he was secretly delighted to have another brother to look after. Sometimes, he would pick the toddler up and put him on his shoulders, and Rickon would squeal and laugh.

“You were there, weren’t you, when we brought the wolf cubs back? Do you remember how happy Rickon was when Robb put Shaggydog in his arms? I’ve never seen his eyes go so wide!” Ned had been worried at first that the toddler wouldn’t be able to take the responsibility of caring for a pet, even with his brothers helping him. Worse, he worried that once the cub had grown it would harm him. But the two were inseparable.

Catelyn laughed and gave a watery smile. “They were all so insistent that he pick a name other than Shaggydog.”

Now it was Ned’s turn to laugh. Robb and Jon had done everything short of bribing Rickon in attempting to make him change the wolf’s name. Even Bran had joined in. By the end, Ned and Catelyn, when asked, had hid their laughter and told Rickon that Shaggydog was a wonderful name for a fierce, night-black wolf. Rickon had taken this as irrefutable evidence that his choice was the right one, and his brothers gave up soon after that.

Catelyn rested her head on Ned’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arm more tightly around her. They continued reminiscing on past joys, first with difficulty but with growing ease as the minutes passed. They recalled fonder times when their family had been whole and happy, when the Rickon and Robb had laughed and played in the yard as the summer sun shone down on them, and the other children and wore smiles that were so absent now.

Sansa found them like that perhaps two hours later.

Upon her approach, Catelyn sighed, and turned away from the graves. “There will never be time to mourn, will there?”, she said wearily.

Sansa nodded. Her eyes were sorrowful. “Father’s presence has been requested in the godswood. And Uncle Edmure wants to speak with mother.” Catelyn’s expression grew colder at the mention of her brother.

“We best not keep them waiting, then,” said Catelyn. Her gaze lingered on the graves for a moment. Perhaps she was saying a silent farewell. Then she began to make her way down the hallway, Sansa walking with her.

When Ned didn’t follow, the two women turned. “Father?” Sansa asked.

“I won’t be much longer,” Ned murmured. He made no indication to follow them, instead turning to walk further down the hall in the opposite direction. He did not look back, but after a second, heard footsteps moving away.

He’d wanted to be alone when he talked to Lyanna. Those words weren’t for Catelyn – or indeed, for anyone – to  hear.

From the folds of his cloak, Ned extracted a winter rose. Inside the castle’s heated walls, some of the hardy flowers still grew despite the chill. Lyanna had always loved winter roses. As he placed it at the foot of his sister’s statue, taking perhaps too much time to arrange them neatly. He stood back.

This grief was an old, familiar pain, but it flared up sharply, like the ache of an old scar coming back to life when the weather changed.

“I failed, Lyanna. I won’t ask you to forgive me for that, because I’m his parent as much as you are, and as his parent I know I can’t forgive myself,” he said, “I couldn’t protect any of them. But I won’t fail again. I’ll protect him. I promise.”

Ned remembered how the fear had disappeared from her face when he’d told her those same words so many years ago. But now he was not a young man, and Jon’s secret was no longer a secret. Now, instead of having a mere inkling of how difficult keeping that promise would be, he was frighteningly aware of how easy it would be to fail.

“He knows his name now,” he told his sister, hoping she could hear him, somewhere. “I’ll tell him all about you. I’m sorry that I didn’t, before. I should have found a way.” He had a hundred stories to tell Jon of wolf-blooded Lyanna, not just the innocent, kidnapped maid that they spoke of now. They would be painful to recall, but he thought that giving them to Jon would ease some of the guilt that haunted Ned.

“You would be so proud, Lya.”

That was all he had time to say, for now. He turned from the grave, and walked up the stairs to face the living.

As he walked to the godswood, accompanied by a several of the household guards that tried not to stare at him like he was a ghost walking among them, Ned wondered what, exactly, Bran needed him for.  He assumed it was Bran, for he knew his son spent most of his time at the heart tree. He didn’t understand the full extent of his son’s abilities, nor what he was using them for or how, other than it seemed that they were easier to control when he was physically near the weirwoods. He left the guards stationed beyond the weirwood, out of earshot. Whatever Bran was doing, he wasn’t sure if he trusted these men enough to be privy to it.

But Bran wasn’t waiting for him at the heart tree.

Instead, Jaime Lannister stood at the base of the weirwood. His eyes met Ned’s, a resigned expression on his face.

Ned forgot all that his children and their advisors had told him about the necessity of a seasoned commander in the coming wars. He forgot all about the oaths the Kingslayer had sworn to Jon and Daenerys, and the guest-right they had reluctantly given him. He even forgot about the sword that hung from his hip and the dagger in his belt. He could only recall the sight of Bran’s broken, twisted legs as he wasted away in a coma, and found himself striding across the snow towards his son’s would-be murderer.

His fist collided squarely with the Jaime Lannister’s jaw.

Infuriatingly, Lannister made no move to defend himself. He just rolled with punch and stumbled backwards two steps in the snow, moving out of reach of Ned. He must have expected some similar reaction.

“I’m surprised I’m not speaking to you at sword-point,” said Jaime. His words were mocking, but instead of anger, his expression held only shame. He reached up to rub the reddening spot with his left hand, wincing. Both of his hands were encased in gloves, but Ned felt some satisfaction that the right hand was frozen into one unmovable position – false – and that his sword now hung on his right side, rather than his left. Small evidence of the man’s punishment.

“I’m considering it,” Ned replied, almost in a growl, “By the end of this meeting, that sword may itself buried in your gut.”

The Kingslayer laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. “It won’t. Your children’s oaths mean more to you than that, and even if they are not here to see you throw away their honor, your gods will.”

"Honor," Ned scoffed. He hated the man’s words; Ned was, in that moment, not a godly man, but a father, looking at his family's ruin walk away unpunished, while Bran will never walk again. "Honor did not stop you from slaughtering my men and crippling my son."

The Kingslayer did not deny it. “But it will stop you; that, and my necessity. Though I do not deserve it.”

The damnable man was right. Even more infuriating: if the confession of his guilt and humility was false, he hid it well. He looked older than his years, and at that moment, almost haggard. Jaime Lannister watched him with a face that almost made Ned believe that if he decided to slay him there, the Kingslayer might kneel to give him better access to his neck.

To Ned Stark, it made no difference. “I will give you no forgiveness,” he said firmly.

“My children are dead too,” Ser Jaime said, solemn-faced. "I will not ask it."

If Ned were a better man, he might have felt empathy. He didn't. Instead, some small, cruel part of him felt satisfied that the Kingslayer knew his own pain – perhaps he was feeling a shadow of what Robert had felt when he’d looked upon the corpses of the Targaryen children, and seen only dragonspawn.

It made him sick. _They were children,_ he reminded himself. Not so long ago he had taken steps to try to ensure their survival.

“Why are you here, then?”

“To call for a truce,” said Jaime. “You need me for the coming war. You know that. After that…”Jaime shrugged. “If your monarchs see no further use for me, I may very well may find myself on the executioner’s block. Which, I might add,” he said bitterly, “is what you always wanted since that day in Red Keep, so your wish will _finally_ be fulfilled.”

He recognized the barb for what it was. “You have no place to be claiming any sort of innocence, given that if I had my son would be able to walk right now.

After a beat, Jaime replied. “I cannot deny that you’re right,” he said, almost apologetically. It was strange to see any sort of humility from the once-arrogant man. “Nor, I think, would I have ever told you why I killed the king, if you had had your way.”

It took swallowing all of his pride to reply and acknowledge his own error. Or perhaps it was _because_ of his pride, that he could tell himself he was able to do so. “I should have not assumed. We were at war." He swallowed. "And the King needed to die."

Ser Jaime had the audacity to give a brittle laugh. "You should not have. But you did not, nor would you ever consider to. 'No man is more dangerous than an oathbreaker,' your son quoted at me," he said with mock approval tinged with pain. "'He will flinch from no crime, no matter how vile.' I did not need to ask who had taught them that."

“Whatever good you have may have done by killing Aerys does not change the man you are now,” Ned told him grimly, ignoring the rebuke in the Kingslayer’s words.

“No,” said Jaime sadly, “No, it does not.”

When he saw that Ned had nothing more to say to him, the Kingslayer took the sheathed sword from his belt and held it out to Ned hilt first, expression solemn. Ned frowned, momentarily confused, and took it. A golden lion gleamed at the hilt, and the scabbard was garishly decorated with rearing lions.

“Brienne told me you refused Oathkeeper, but I thought you might want that back,” said Jaime Lannister, the mockery returned to his voice. It sounded forced. “Call it something better than Widow’s Wail, will you?”

He walked away, leaving Ned alone with the weirwood, holding his sword. He found he had no heart for prayer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next is Cat's pov. I'll also be working on some interlude oneshots of some of the other character's povs from previous chapters.
> 
> To those of you who had finals, I hope they went well. Happy holidays and season's greetings to you all!


	5. Wolf mother, where you been?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catelyn talks with her brother and her daughters. Then, she has a discussion with Daenerys. 
> 
> It goes about as well as you can expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from a study-abroad hiatus (which I did not tell anybody about, because I am the Worst). This chapter's title comes from the song _Wolf_ by First Aid Kit. 
> 
> I don't know if I'm entirely happy with this chapter, but you all have waited long enough. I hope you enjoy it!

Catelyn would’ve had to be a fool to not see that her brother has suffered. There were lines on his face that were not there before, and his complexion was pale from months of imprisonment. They were alone in his chambers – not quite fit for the Lord of Riverrun, but the best that could be found under the circumstances.

A part of her wondered if they were better than the chambers the Freys had afforded him on his wedding night, the night of her death.

When the door shut, Edmure did not step closer. He looked her up and down, almost as if she were a letter he was inspecting for forgery. “I can’t believe it’s you,” he said. His eyes were wide.

“Neither can I,” said Catelyn.

“I’m sorry,” said her brother, voice choked with emotion.

“I know,” said Catelyn. _So am I._ “But it wasn’t your doing. You couldn’t have known what would happen. You didn’t even want to go through with it.”

“Then why did you throw me that look last evening?” asked Edmure, hurt. “You have to know I mourned for you and Robb. Are you …angry, with me?” He did not say “for surviving”, but something in his tone implied it.

“ _No,”_ said Catelyn, “You’re my little brother, I would never wish you dead, I just…I need time.”

“Time for what?” asked her brother. To his credit, he sounded more confused than angry.

Catelyn took a deep breath. “Time to forget that it was your wedding. Time to forget that while Robb bled out in front of me you were bedding your new wife and conceiving a son.”

Edmure blanched, aghast at her words. “If I had known, I would have died with you. The moment the … marriage was consummated,” he said, both angry and flustered, “I was tossed into a cell and stayed there for years!”

“I _know,”_ she nearly snapped. “You asked me why, and I answered honestly. I didn’t say I was being rational.” She _had_ just admitted that Edmure was not at fault for her son’s death.

But inside of herself, she felt a grief so fierce and sharp that it could almost drive her mad, and underneath that grief, rage gathering like a storm. Her sons’ deaths were etched into her. That anger, it did not care that the Freys and Boltons were dead, and the Lannisters untouchable. It might always be with her.

“I’m just so _angry,_ Edmure,” she said, “and it seems that because there isn’t a target I can reach with that anger, its spilling out onto you. And I can’t congratulate you for gaining a wife and son from the tragedy. Don’t expect me to.”

Edmrure was silent for a moment. “I can understand that, I suppose,” he said, but there was a bite to his words that said he still felt affronted. “But I think you’re wrong to say you don’t have anyone available to punish. You’ve forgotten that there are two Lannisters under your own roof.”

“I have not,” said Catelyn, taking a seat by the fire. “I would like to see their heads on spikes for what they’ve done to my family. The Imp may not deserve it. Jaime Lannister certainly does, even if I’m told he not part in the Red Wedding. But both are protected by oaths and politics.” She gestured with her hands, trying to express her frustration. “I can do nothing.”

Edmure moved to sit at the chair opposite her, the fire crackling between them. “I don’t trust either of them, the Kingslayer most of all. He threatened to…well, he threatened me. When I was his prisoner. Once this truce is over I don’t trust that he won’t crawl back to his sister’s bed with full knowledge of our numbers and defenses, or worse, put those men he has here to good use. I don’t have enough men to stop them if they try it in the night.”

Catelyn held a similar opinion, and despite Brienne’s efforts could not be dissuaded from it. “We can only hope that if he does our men – or the King and Queen’s soldiers, rather – will keep a close watch on the Lannisters’ backs, and that the Imp doesn’t feel hold much filial affection towards his brother.” Which, if she remembered correctly, wasn’t true.

“We’re placing our faith an untried boy who is already losing support, a bloodthirsty foreign girl who’s brought a barbarian horde and two uncontrollable monsters to our shores, and her kinslayer Hand.”

“Not much hope at all, I’ll admit,” said Catelyn resignedly.

“You didn’t know then? About Jon Snow.”

“No,” Catelyn said with enough force to indicate she wanted the subject dropped. She was still angry with Ned for not telling her. Part of her felt like he’d betrayed her all over again, and if she weren’t so overjoyed to have him back she would be furious. _But what would you have done if you had known,_ a small voice inside of her whispered.

She ignored it. “The best course of action that we have is to make sure they succeed. I’ve been told that Cersei has grown even more rash than her son…” Edmure snorted, as if to say that was understatement if he ever heard one, but he said nothing. Catelyn continued. “I know nothing about our King and Queen, but they’re at least inclined to let us live and keep our lands. Unfortunately for us, though, I have no sway over their decisions.”

“You have more than I have amidst these Northerners,” Edmure pointed out. “Riverrun is only mine by the Kingslayer’s good grace,” he said with a grimace, “and it sits in a kingdom that’s been ravaged by Lannister men for the past three years. The Lord of Riverrun’s title means little and less, even with all of the Freys gone – actually, that might make it even worse – “

“ _All_ the Freys?” Catelyn interrupted, genuinely confused and more than a little alarmed. “Did they all turn tail and flee when Walder died?” _When Arya killed him,_ she added silently.

“There is no more House Frey,” said Edmure, surprised by the question. “Every male heir, from the eldest sons to the youngest squires, were all found lying dead in pools of their own blood and vomit months ago after a feast at the Twins. Poison. The latest Lady Frey must have been driven half-mad with the sight of it, because nobody could make rhyme or reason of her ravings about who did or how it happened. The rumors about it, though, are…” Edmure cleared his throat, “Well, they’re wild, completely unbelievable, but…disturbing.”

She could not say, in the madness following Robb’s death, that she would have not killed every Frey that crossed her path in vengeance, and a shadow of that impulse clawed at her still. But she remembered, too, the sheer _number_ of the Freys, the gleam in Arya’s eyes when she spoke of slitting Lord Walder’s throat, and the clear certainty in her voice when she said that Robb had been avenged. She suddenly felt very cold, and very, very helpless, in an entirely different way.

Edmure was waiting for her to say something. “That makes your son the Lord of the Crossing,” Catelyn said, “as well as the heir to Riverrun.”

“Which effectively makes _me_ the Lord of the Crossing until he comes of age, but with me being who I am, and the Frey woman and every godsdamned minor noble with an ego turning the Riverlands into a bloodbath as they fight it out amongst themselves, you can understand why it’s a pretty damned empty title. Even the Blackwoods have more influence than I do. These Northron lords won’t listen to me. Even if they did, I would not know what to say. I’m not Uncle Brynden. They won’t follow me.” His words were both worrisome and accurate. Her brother was not made for politics or strategy. “You, though,” Edmure continued, “You have your husband. And he has Jon Snow’s ear.”

“And what do you want me to tell him?” Catelyn asked dryly, heart pained. “The advice that I gave Robb?” She took a breath and forced herself to think reasonably. “Still, though, you might be right.”

“Then you’ve given thought about what to tell them.”

“Some,” she said, “I’ve had little time. But what you say is both true, and just the beginning of our problems. The Riverlands cannot support the Queen’s army of savages, nor the Wildlings, if she means to settle them there.” Nor could the North support them, or the Wildlings.

The barbarians weren’t the only concern, either. Though Edmure might not realize it yet, the Iron Islanders also posed a problem. The Queen sought to bring an end to the Ironborn’s culture of reaving. But there was a _reason_ the Ironborn had turned to piracy – the Iron Islands were as stony and unforgiving as the men who lived there, and crops did not grow well in their soil. For many, fishing or the backbreaking work of mining ore didn’t provide enough money for food come Winter, leading the islanders to become pirates. If Daenerys was to put an end to the piracy, she would have to find a way to convince others to trade with the poor islands.

 _Or,_ she could simply give the Iron Islanders a slice of the Riverland’s coast to grow crops to support themselves. The idea wasn’t entirely outlandish, either. The Riverlands had been ruled by the Island Islanders for the brief period of three generations – Harren the Black had been King of the Isles and the Rivers. His line, however, ended when Aegon the Conquerer burned Harrenhall, the Riverlands were given to the Tullys.

What Catelyn feared was that Daenerys would be persuaded to give part of the Riverlands to the Greyjoys. They were, after all, some of her earliest supporters, and the Queen had no reason to love the Tullys. She hoped the Queen had not thought of it, but Tyrion might have been clever enough to do so.

For now, this was just conjecture. But if that was indeed the plan, Catelyn was loathe to let Daenerys give any portion of coast to the Greyjoys, the Essosi slaves and savages, or the Wildlings, without some fealty being paid to the lords of the Riverlands. She wondered if Edmure had even considered the prospect that his war-torn lands might become even smaller.

“As for your irrelevance,” she continued, “I think that if you are named Warden of the West, that should be solved.” Her brother looked surprised by this last idea, then contemplative. The title had gone to the head of House Lannister since its creation.

No doubt the Queen’s Hand would have something to say about that idea.

“And the Kingslayer?”

“Unless the terms of the alliance specify it will last until he returns to King’s Landing, I see no reason why our King and Queen can’t apprehend them on their return South. Dragons cover ground quickly.”

Edmure seemed to agree with this. Personally, Catelyn would prefer to be present for the Kingslayer’s death, but she would have to be satisfied.

Now all she had to do was convince her husband. No doubt he would see the Lannisters put down as well, but she wondered if his honor would hold him to the spirit of the alliance, rather than the letter.

-

She and Ned had planned to go their separate ways for the afternoon, and so she sought out Sansa. She found her in their - her – chambers, pouring over parchments and ledgers stacked altogether too high. Upon hearing the door open, Sansa straightened, taking on an air of confidence. Seeing Catelyn standing there, she first looked surprised, then smiled, and some of the tension left her.

“Hello, Mother.”

The voice came from the other side of the room, and Catelyn almost jumped, startled. She spun around to see Arya sitting on the bed, examining a cloak. She was dressed in another leather jerkin and trousers that Catelyn would have scolded her for wearing, once upon a time. “Sorry,” she said, and gave an apologetic smile. Catelyn smiled back, and then her eyes widened when she realized what Arya was holding.

“Would you like to see?” asked Arya, smiling, and held the maiden’s cloak out to her. Catelyn walked closer, feeling dazed, and took it.

It was a beautiful piece of white lambs-wool, with grey trim and embroidery. The Stark direwolf stitched in the center had its teeth bared in a snarl, and grey direwolves leapt and ran along the cloak’s edges. It was clear that this hadn’t been started yesterday.

“I began it a few weeks ago,” said Sansa, answering Catelyn’s unspoken question. “I had a feeling it might be needed.”

Catelyn swallowed through the lump in her throat and fought to keep the tears from her eyes, the reality of her daughter’s wedding crashing down on her. How long had she planned for this moment? Years, certainly – it was often in the back of her mind when she chided Arya for being absent from lessons and returning late at night with tears in her dress and muddy knees. She had once told Ned that because Arya never dreamed of her own future wedding like most girls did, Catelyn thought about it all the more to compensate. Those long days of forcing Arya to pay attention to her septa and all of the arguments they engaged in to shape her into a lady would be worth it once she had a husband to care for her and a household of her own to keep her satisfied.

This was both the fulfillment of her dreams and the ruin of them. Arya, marrying into one of the most powerful families in the Seven Kingdoms, yet into a house nearly ruined by war, and wed to a bastard boy who’d never set foot in Storm’s End. _That_ was distasteful enough to Catelyn without the political mire it landed her daughter in. The nobility of the Stormlands might make a grab for power, and wanting to keep the Stormlands for themselves, use the Baratheon boy’s bastardry as an excuse to reject his claim. Gendry’s own disposition did not help. Gendry had looked so out of place at the high table last night, so self-conscious, that Catelyn had her doubts about his ability to rule over anything more than forge. She hoped Storm’s End had a capable Maester and steward, because her daughter was going to need them.

This was assuming Cersei did not assassinate both of them first. Catelyn had no illusions about the fates of Robert’s other baseborn children.

Furthermore, Arya would never be a lady – that hope was crushed forever. Truthfully, Catelyn wasn’t sure _what_ her daughter was now, and that scared her. But she was survivor, at the very least, and that was more than many mothers could say.

And it _was_ a very beautiful cloak.

“Are you sure that you won’t wear a dress?” she asked, turning the cloak in her hands before handing it back to Arya. “It would be most unusual for the bride not to wear a dress to her own wedding.”

“Nothing about Arya is usual,” said Sansa, coming over to the bed. Her sister coughed out a laugh. It wasn’t the first time Sansa called her sister strange, but it was the first time she didn’t mean it as an insult. Catelyn was glad the two girls had grown closer. “Besides, we don’t have time to have one fitted. Three days doesn’t leave us much time.”

“It most certainly does not!” said Catelyn, but she understood the reason for the rush. If either of them died, they would die as man and wife, and if nothing else, the wedding would be good for morale. “Will there be enough rations to pull together a feast?”

“No more than the usual fare,” sighed Sansa.

No dress, no feast, no high lord, and most importantly, no Robb or Rickon to celebrate with them. Catelyn’s heart twisted. The only pieces of her vision that remained were the cloak and the setting. She put a hand on Arya’s shoulder. For once, Arya didn’t squirm away. “You deserve better.”

Arya shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m not getting married for some fancy clothes and good food, so I don’t really care.”

“Why _are_ you getting married?” Sansa asked suddenly. Catelyn frowned, unsure of what she meant.

“There’s an army of dead men coming to kill us all?” said Arya, all but rolling her eyes.

“I _know_ that,” answered Sansa, exasperated, “but just last week you told me you thought it ‘unnecessary’.” Arya glared at her, as if to say, ‘You weren’t supposed to tell Mother that!’.

Oh, Blessed Mother, let her not be pregnant. Catelyn Stark had absolutely no illusions about what her headstrong, wayward daughter, who had spent the past few years hiding amongst outlaws and gods knew who else, was doing with the bastard boy from Fleabottom in her spare time. It certainly wasn’t anything her Septa would have approved of – or what Catelyn would approve of, for that matter. That kiss had shown her _quite_ enough. If they weren’t to be wed in under a week’s time she would have shaken her daughter and demanded just what in the Seven Hells she was thinking, carrying on like that so indiscreetly. It was not befitting an unmarried woman, _especially_ not one of noble birth.

She’d stopped herself by remembering that Arya had spent years pretending not to be a lady, and now never would be, and that her behavior outside of the marriage bed was preferable to what Sansa had endured in hers. Catelyn could only hope that Ned would not think too hard on the matter, and that Arya would have the sense to use moon tea.

She still could not believe that Sansa, her sensible girl, had allowed it to continue. She was even more taken aback that her brothers had done nothing – Jon Snow had always let Arya do whatever she wanted, instead of what was best for her–

Enough. She did not want to think of Jon Snow. _And I doubt that Arya would have let anyone stop her._

Catelyn shook her thoughts away and returned her attention to her younger daughter, who seemed to be mulling over responses in her head. “You’re right, I didn’t really see how standing in front of a tree could make _us_ more than we already were.” She said this like she cared not who knew the implications of that statement, but also carefully didn’t look at Catelyn. “Gendry wanted to marry more than I did, but didn’t push, because he knows better than to push me.

“But the Bran brought Father back. And I thought, well, if Father was there to give me away, and Mother was there to toast us at the feast -” and here, she looked at Catelyn, who felt something like gratefulness and sadness, all mixed together in one unnamable emotion - “and if you and Jon and Bran were there, as long as it was Gendry, well, then maybe it would be worth doing.”

Something haunting passed through Sansa’s eyes and then melted away, looking, perhaps, to the future. “That’s a good reason,” said Sansa mildly.

“A very good reason,” agreed Catelyn, thoughts of moon-tea forgotten. She felt tears welling in her eyes. She laid her hand over Arya’s, and Arya took it, and the darkness retreated, just a little.

“I have something for you,” Arya said suddenly, and reached into her belt. She handed Catelyn a small but well-made dragonglass dagger with a curved blade about the length of Catelyn’s hand. “It’s not exactly a nice gift,” she said, “but you should have one. All of the smart ladies have been learning how to use them. The lowborn girls too. Sometimes I teach them.” She sounded very pleased with herself.

“Is that so?” said Catelyn, amused at the image, though she knew they must have been in dire straits to start recruiting women.

“I have one,” said Sansa. Sure enough, there was a dagger on her hip similar to the one Arya had given her. “I’m not very good, but Arya says I’m less likely to stab myself now.” Her sister snorted.

“I can show you a few things, if you want,” Arya added hesitantly.

Catelyn thought about this for a moment. It was not a bad idea. She should to at least know the basics of defending herself. At this point in her life, it would be foolish not to, even though she would never be proficient at it. She was not like Arya or Brienne; her strengths did not include strength in arms. Though from what Edmure had told her about the Frey’s deaths, she suspected that Arya’s skills extended to much, much more than that – something that she would have to discuss with her daughter later.

For now, she allowed Arya to show her how to hold the dagger and a proper stance, both far less intuitive than Catelyn would have thought. She thought that Arya enjoyed teaching her something – it reminded her of the times Sansa would show her the embroidery she’d worked on, or when Robb asked her to come to the yard and watch him practice, though with the obvious difference of being more practical. Arya took her leave soon after, though, claiming she didn’t want to miss her long-standing appointment with Brienne in the yard.

“And after that?” asked Catelyn.

“I have business in the camps,” Arya said, sounding intentionally vague.

Catelyn was not satisfied, and gave her a look that said as much, belatedly realizing she might be treating Arya like an eleven-year-old girl. Still, it loosened her daughter’s tongue.

“Gathering information,” said Arya. “We’ve all just changed things, immensely. None of us know how the people will react, not really. That needs to change. And Varys can’t be the only one to follow the rumor mill. I don’t trust him or his little birds.”

Catelyn frowned. “Smallfolk tend to be tight-lipped when lords and ladies are afoot. Your time might be better spent elsewhere.”

“I’m good at not being noticed,” replied Arya with a sly smile. This should not have made Catelyn concerned.

Except, behind her, Sansa flinched. Maybe she it was Catelyn’s imagination, but she thought she saw a hint of distaste, or maybe fear, in her eyes.

Maybe it was her imagination, maybe she was being paranoid, but she could no longer shake the feeling that there was something that they weren’t telling her; something that involved what Catelyn suddenly realized sounded very much like spying. Something that made her eldest daughter uncomfortable, and that may have involved whatever skills allowed a seventeen-year-old girl to slaughter an entire House in the span of night.

Catelyn just wanted her daughters back, but those girls were gone.

The door shut behind Arya. “Well,” said Catelyn, walking over to the desk, “shall we begin?”

Several hours later, Catelyn was left with a clear view of just how dismal the war effort was.

Winterfell was running low on every sort of supply, a problem compounded by how the War of the Five Kings had left the North ill-equipped for Winter. Grain had been sent to Winterfell, but even with rationing it would be hard to feed both the soldiers and the refugees that had fled to the castle. Usually, the smallfolk would have set up shanties against the walls for Winter, but the coming army of the dead meant they would have to be sheltered inside the gate, increasing the possibility of disease. The camps had additional problems – nights were cold and growing colder. More men and horsed froze each night.

“The bonfires smoke all the time, now,” said Sansa. “The bodies haven’t started coming back yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”

They discussed possible solutions to each problem and found none that fit well. Catelyn was impressed, however, that most of her suggestions had already been thought of by Sansa and her advisors, and as a result only minor changes were made to most of her plans. It left Catelyn feeling very proud, and unfortunately, somewhat useless.

Catelyn looked at the numbers of troops in front of her. They were not encouraging, and the tallies of deaths from sickness or even the cold were growing, despite how they were camped just outside a castle. There just wasn’t room indoors for all of them. Once the battle did come, their numbers would be even lower… “How many men of the Golden Company did Cersei hire?”

“10,000,” said Sansa.

“We really needed that truce, didn’t we,” breathed Catelyn. Sansa nodded. “Truly,” said Catelyn, “Cersei Lannister is a conniving bitch.”

Sansa looked, well, she looked like a girl who’d seen her mother curse for the first time. Catelyn nearly laughed at her scandalized expression. “Well, I have to agree with you on that,” she replied, “She’s always been power-hungry. She made my life in King’s Landing a living hell. Still, I did learn a lot from her.”

“I’m sure she didn’t intend for that.” Catelyn did not want to think on the contents of those lessons; it was unlikely that they contained anything she would have approved of or wanted her daughter to experience.

“No, she didn’t,” said Sansa, “or if she did, she only wanted me to know that the world was cruel, and it was better if I kept my head down and accepted that fact.” She looked thoughtful. “I think I learned to pretend instead. She would have been better off leaving me ignorant. Littlefinger’s lessons were even more useful, but he made the mistake of teaching me to well.”

Baelish. That murdering, treacherous little snake. Just thinking about him made Catelyn see red. At first, she couldn’t believe it – Petyr had been her friend since childhood. She remembered giggling with Lysa over how they’d stolen kisses from him in her father’s gardens like it was yesterday. He was so charming, once; how could he have done this? How _dare_ he claim to love her once, and then kill her husband and her sister! What kind of sick, _deranged_ man could claim Sansa as the daughter he’d always wanted while simultaneously desiring to take her into his bed! And even with that deranged, twisted kind of love, he’d still sold Sansa to a monster. She didn’t believe for a second, knowing what she knew now, that he hadn’t known.

If had been up to her, she would have done much worse than slit his throat.

“He taught me how people think,” Sansa was saying, “how to make them do what I wanted and think it was their idea; how to lie. I know how to manage Robyn Arryn; and I’ve made the Vale lords my own. And he taught me I couldn’t trust him. I think that was the biggest mistake he made.”

“You shouldn’t have had to learn those things.”

“No, but I needed to,” Sansa said, and if she didn’t look happy about it, she did look satisfied. And yes, Catelyn realized, she had. Sansa had been ill-prepared for life in the Southron court. She had always been an optimistic, naïve girl, with a head full of stories. She excelled at embroidery and could recite from The Seven-Pointed Star, attended her lessons dutifully, and was the very picture of courtesy. Catelyn had sent her off to the capitol confident the she would make Joffrey and excellent wife.

But not, she reflected, a good queen. No parent looks forward to the day their child’s innocence will be left behind, and as Catelyn and Ned’s teenage years had faced so many difficulties, they had sought to shelter their daughters from the same. They’d assumed Sansa’s naivety would fall away naturally with age, as it did with all young women. They made her marriageable and thrown her into court expecting that the South would be kinder to her than it was to themselves.

It was a mistake, and Catelyn felt shame in the pit of her stomach that she’d left her daughters so defenseless, and that _Petyr Baelish,_ of all people, had been the one to correct it. And probably without imparting on Sansa any of the morals that should accompany rule. She hoped that Sansa and Arya had remembered enough of herself and Ned not to forget those lessons, few though they had been.

“Sansa, what he did to you…”

“Was terrible,” Sansa finished for her. “But I survived it.”

Silence fell for a time. Finally, Sansa spoke again. “It wasn’t all bad. I had a friend or two in the Eyrie – Myranda Royce, and Myra, Gendry’s half-sister.” She hesitated, then gave Catelyn a very pointed look. “I would have never been friends with a bastard before I was Alayne Stone.”

Catelyn felt shock at the hidden rebuke, and mentally cursed herself. She didn’t want to think about this. “I’m sorry that you had to hide yourself that way,” she replied with forced casualness, hoping that Sansa would change the topic.

“Oh, so was I, but it wasn’t so bad, given that Lady Lysa treated me well, until the end. It might have been much worse otherwise,” Sansa said.

“You’re not talking about you anymore,” Catelyn said sharply. Her nerves were frayed everything she’d undergone in the past two days; she couldn’t _take_ this, especially not from her own daughter! “You may have to dance around your Lords to make your points, but I am still your mother. If you want to say something, say it.”

“Fine,” said Sansa, relaxing back into her chair. “You treated Jon like shit. I imitated you in everything; I treated Jon like shit.” Catelyn flinched at the vulgarity of her words – the Sansa she knew would have never cursed.

“I regret the past, though I can’t change it,” said Catelyn. “I will not be rebuked by my own daughter for mistakes I’ve already acknowledged, do you understand me?” She was trying to keep calm, but it had never been easy for her to discuss Jon Snow, now more than ever.

“Have you?” Her daughter was completely unfazed. The girl she once had been would have been cowed at the first hint of rebuke.

“Have I what?”

“Acknowledged them.”

“The King has agreed to let bygones be bygones.” The King, Jaehaerys, Jon whatever he was going by these days.

Sansa hmmed in consideration, setting her papers aside. “You’re very lucky we have a good King. And have you spoken to the Queen?”

“I haven’t.” She’d been avoiding the task.

“You should,” said Sansa, “surely you haven’t missed her…feelings towards you.” _No, I haven’t, thank you Sansa._ “She won’t confront you while you’re grieving Robb and Rickon, but it would do well for you to come some sort of truce with her. She is not the type to…let things go.”

Catelyn felt a pang at the mention of Robb. She pushed the thought down; if she thought of Robb and Rickon, she would go mad. She was irritated that she’d have to apologize to a woman, practically a girl, that she’d never met because of her sins against what she thought had been a bastard boy. Frankly, she didn’t see why she needed to. Daenerys was angry on Jon’s behalf, but she’d already admitted she’d done wrong to him, and Jon had more or less agreed to return to uncomfortably avoiding each other whenever possible. Furthermore, she also thought Ned was as much to blame for not telling her of Jon’s true parentage. Catelyn had reacted to her husband’s faithlessness as any other woman would have. Why couldn’t the Queen just accept that?

 _Because she is the_ Queen _, and she is both proud and in love,_ Catelyn thought. She exhaled heavily.

“Think of it this way,” said Sansa, “Jon is both her husband _and_ her last remaining family. If someone treated Father, or Sweetrobin, or, I don’t know, Uncle Edmure, the way we treated Jon…”

“I would be angry,” Catelyn admitted. _But I could understand, surely._ Evidently, the Queen didn’t.

“Just go,” Sansa urged her, trying to give a reassuring smile “It’ll make it easier on all of us.”

Catelyn hated to take political advice from her daughter but saw the wisdom in the suggestion. She reluctantly rose from her seat by the desk. “Where is she?” she asked, straightening out her stack of papers. Sansa rose with her.

“Their chambers are just down the hall – in the room with the red door.” The color must have been a recent change, because when Catelyn left to go South there had not been a red door anywhere in the castle. Sansa’s last addition was also accompanied by a distracted, probably unintentional, smile that was most looked familiar on her. Usually, she wore it after uttering the phrase, “ _isn’t that_ romantic _?”_ Catelyn, however, had no idea what was so romantic about a red door and did not care.

“Until the feast tonight,” Catelyn said. She was struck with the sudden, ridiculous feeling that if she let Sansa out of her sight now, her daughter would disappear entirely. She held out her arms for an embrace, which Sansa accepted whole-heartedly. If it lasted longer than usual, neither of them mentioned it.

It was an absurdly short trip to the end of the hallway, but her stomach sank with every step. Amidst all the other things that had turned to ashes since Ned had died, she was faced with this horrible, terrible truth.

The King and Queen’s chambers did indeed stand out with the door’s fresh coat of cherry-red paint. The guards (Unsullied, by the look of them) moved out of the way at her approach. Despite herself, she was impressed by their lack of stares. They moved aside so she could knock.

Daenerys Targaryen opened the door promptly. Luckily, she was alone, but her face soured upon seeing Catelyn. Catelyn’s mood took a similar turn. The Queen stood aside without a word and closed the door behind her.

“I presume you have business to discuss with me?” Daenerys said in a tone that dared Catelyn to waste her time. She walked several feet away and crossed her arms. Catelyn found it rude she  did not offer her a seat. Daenerys looked as if she was squaring off for a debate. While she might have been young and physically unimposing, she still managed to make for an intimidating figure. Her violet eyes shone with distaste.

Catelyn debated various responses, trying to decide which one would be least likely to provoke her ire. Snow had said she possessed a quick temper; Catelyn did not want to waken it. Should she try flattery? No, Daenerys was a beautiful young woman and therefore would be used to flattery. She decided on the most honest and direct answer.

“You Grace, I know that you are not predisposed to think kindly of me, given –“

The Queen cut her off with a short, disbelieving laugh. “I should think not,” she said curtly. “Let me be clear, Lady Stark, you are very lucky that I am not as unforgiving as my enemies believe.”

Catelyn did not think that Daenerys was inclined to be forgiving, at all, but did not say so. Still, she felt indignant that she should be treated so. Whatever private rebukes she made to herself, her pride did not sit well with others repeating them to her in such a sanctimonious tone. She felt the need to defend her actions. She felt guilty for them, yes, but at the time, few people would have told her they weren’t justified.

“I was unkind, but I had no way of knowing the respect that your husband deserved. I’m…” she took a breath and forced the word out, “ _ashamed,_ that I treated him so, but I reacted no differently than any other woman would have in my position. Even my husband did not find fault in it.”

“Lord Stark surely had his reasons,” said Daenerys. “And my Dornishmen are proof that your actions were by no means universal.”

 _My husband could have done anything he wished,_ Catelyn wanted to say, but Daenerys said it with conviction that she could tell it would be a losing fight _._ Clearly, she saw Ned as something of a hero for rescuing her nephew. “Dorne is different from most of the South. In most places baseborn children are fostered away from their fathers.”

“Away from all their family, and those that would have loved them,” Daenerys retorted, voice clipped. “To be shoved aside and swept under the rug. I cannot imagine any child could experience that and not feel hopelessly unwanted.”

“It is the best solution for many baseborn children, and I’m sure that many write their families,” said Catelyn defensively, knowing the latter was not true.  “And could you blame me for wanting that solution? Your husband is an honorable man, but if he were not, would you want see the product of his mistake, every day?”

Daenerys was a woman, surely could understand _that._ She felt a growing annoyance with the Targaryen queen’s absolute refusal to sympathize.

“Perhaps not,” admitted Daenerys, not appeased in the slightest, “but I would feel more shamed by my husband than his offspring.”

Catelyn _had_ blamed Ned initially, but she was not going to give Daenerys any ground by enlightening her to that fact. “Men are expected to stray during war. They have needs.”

Daenerys scoffed and rolled her eyes. “And women don’t?” she replied sarcastically.

 _She was raised amongst barbarians,_ Catelyn thought with distaste. _It’s a miracle she respects marriage at all._

“I am not in the habit of punishing children for the sins of their fathers,” said Daenerys, each word a judgmental barb. “Nor would I be spiteful enough to accuse them of wishing their trueborn siblings harm.”

Snow had told her that she’d warned Robb against making him the heir. _Why_ had she given him that ammunition? It was a low blow, in Catelyn’s opinion, and any connection to Robb was one that caused her pain. She snapped.

“You don’t have children,” she bit out, “you have _no idea_ the types of things you fear for them.” She was going to continue on, siting examples of bastards like Ramsay Snow…

…but stopped, realizing immediately that she had made a very serious mistake.

Daenerys Targaryen froze. Her hand flew to her stomach as if to reassure herself something was still growing there. Her expression looked shocked, even broken. Only a moment later, though, it was replaced by an expression as hard as steel and a harsh gaze that was worthy of the Targaryen reputation.

“You forget, Lady Stark,” Daenerys hissed, “That you are not the only woman here who has recently lost a child.”

Catelyn fought a wince. She’d erroneously assumed that they were, well, just dragons.

“They call me the Mother of Dragons,” continued Daenerys, her voice rising, “and it is _not_ an empty title. Dragons are intelligent as men. I paid for my children with the lives of my husband and our poor, unborn son; I suckled them at my breasts and feared that they would starve when my milk ran dry in the desert and I had no food to give them; I raised and cherished and _protected_ them when they were so small that any man with a dagger could have killed them. Viserion was my _son,_ do you understand me? My. _Son._ And a monster has enslaved his corpse and will use it as a weapon against my remaining children. I live with that nightmare every day, so don’t you _dare_ presume to _ever_ tell me that I do not understand what is like to fear for a child!” She was breathing harshly. Before, she sounded self-righteous. Now, she just sounded hurt.

Wisely, Catelyn said nothing.

“Now, if we could return to the topic at hand,” continued the Queen, still fuming, “I do _not_ count you blameless for simply following the poor example of the rest of the world. My life hasn’t been long, but it has been harsh. And if there is one thing it has taught me, it is that people with power trample those who do not, because they can, and because no one tells them that it is wrong. And as such, bastards are not mistreated because they are lowborn, they are mistreated because they are easy scapegoats for their father’s mistakes, and because they don’t have any rights to defend themselves.”

“Jon was a child. He did nothing to deserve his treatment and could do nothing to stop it. Even if Jon was not my husband or my nephew, I would find what you did to him distasteful. As he is, I find it detestable.”

Catelyn thought the queen was overreacting but was forced to admit she was not entirely wrong either. In fact, the more the words sunk in, the more they had the ring of truth to them.

 _But surely,_ she told herself, _I am not that heartless._

Then she remembered praying for the gods to kill an innocent, motherless babe, and knew that she was.

Still, she said nothing. She didn’t know what she _could_ say, after her earlier misstep.

The Queen took several breaths to compose herself. “My husband has told me he would let the past stay in the past. What I _need_ to know is if you will support him, moving forward.”

Fortunately, this was not a hard question to answer. “Yes, Your Grace.” The heat in her previous words was gone. “You reign has the complete support of my House, and I will do my duty.” Family, Duty, Honor. Catelyn Tully Stark had always done her duty.

“Good,” said the Queen with false positivity. “It’s a shame. If things were different, I believe I could have respected you a great deal.”

Catelyn took it for the dismissal it was and saw herself out the room, feeling shame eat at her like worms at a corpse.

She returned to her borrowed quarters and sank down on the bed, putting her head in her hands. She could not tell if she wanted Ned to comfort her, or if she never wanted him to see her in a position of such shame. Now that she was alone, she could see the truth – she hadn’t been arguing with Daenerys. Or, she had been, but she was not _all_ that she was arguing with.

In truth, Catelyn was arguing with herself. _All of the claims she made against me,_ she thought, _were ones that I’ve made against_ myself _in moments of doubt over the years._ What she’d told Daenerys was nothing but a last-ditch attempt to assuage her own guilty conscience. Maybe if she had listened to those doubts and made Jon a Stark as she had promised, the Gods wouldn’t have seen fit to punish her so.

Even if the events of the past few years _weren’t_ a punishment, she could have done much to end the sadness of a poor, lonely child. Oh, how her good-sister would have hated her.

And yet, even knowing all of this, Catelyn still hated Jon Snow.

Oh, not entirely, nor with the self-assured conviction she had yesterday, but her animosity was like a poison in her blood, and she could not drive it out. Catelyn could no longer deny that he was a good man, and the love shared between him and her children was fierce and unbreakable. She might be able think upon him kindly, for that. And she was trying, gods help her she was - but he was alive, while Robb and Rickon were in the ground. She’d glanced over at him at the clearing yesterday as he reunited with his wife, seen the smile of absolute relief on his face and how he’d placed his hand over the growing life in the Queen’s womb, and had been lanced through with the purest envy.

What had the boy done, that he should deserve to _live_ and be so happy in the midst of so much death, while her own sons and grandchild were dead? She still wanted to believe the horrid, spiteful words she’d thrown at him like daggers the day he’d left – _It should have been you._

She had not been able to hide her dislike of the boy from Arya, and as a result Ned and the boy himself knew as well. And yet he did not return the sentiment.

 _But lack of hatred is not forgiveness,_ Catelyn reminded herself. She wondered if she would ever earn it. She wondered if she could find it in herself to _try._

Before long, the sun was setting, and Catelyn forced herself from her misery and tried to lose herself in the routine of readying herself for the feast. A maid had come by with some of her old garments. She spent a long time deciding whether or not to choose a high-neck gown that hid her scar. In the end, she decided against it. The guests could stare and whisper all they wished. She felt no shame is showing the world what Robb’s murderers had done to her.

Afterward, there was still time until the feasting began, and Catelyn did not want to spend it dwelling in her own thoughts. Old routine made her seek out Sansa again.

She found her getting ready at the wooden vanity table in her chambers. Both Sansa and the maid brushing her hair turned to look at her; and Catelyn was brought back to reality.

What was she doing? Sansa wasn’t a child anymore. Catelyn swallowed though a lump in her throat and opened her mouth to apologize for disturbing her.

Sansa spoke first. “You can leave, Thea,” she told the maid, “Thank you, but I won’t be needing your services any more tonight.” The girl gave an abominable curtsey and saw herself from the room. Catelyn looked at her daughter and was struck by nostalgia so fierce she had to blink back tears.

She took up a place behind Sansa’s seat and picked up the hairbrush. “It’s been a while since I’ve done this,” she said, “I might be out of practice.”

“I don’t mind,” said Sansa. Her eyes looked a bit watery. “I hadn’t realized I missed it.”

The loss of her sons still haunted her thoughts, part of her was still furious at her husband for his secret, guilt ate at her, and when she thought of what her children had gone through she was filled with sorrow and fury. But as Catelyn went through the familiar motions of styling her daughter’s hair, she thought that not all had been lost. Maybe, some day, things would be alright again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be in two weeks.


	6. Many Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ned and Davos do a bit of reminiscing, and there are Northern Lords to deal with. Some of those discussions go better than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. I'm only three days late this time, which for me is practically punctual. Hands on the table, this chapter is a bit shorter than my usual, and has been my least favorite chapter so far. However, now that's posted I can move on to the bits of the story that I'm more interested in, so, yay.

Ned’s emotions were still a mix of anger, disappointment, and confusion when he left the godswood with the reforged sword on his hip. He’d been looking forward to seeing Jaime Lannister again. He had been looking forward to kicking the snake’s teeth in for what he’d done to his family and to ripping apart each pitiful excuse the man would make. Ned did not consider himself a vengeful man, but for the Lannisters, he could make an exception.

But the Kingslayer hadn’t made any excuses. The man was practically the picture of regret, and that was something Ned did know what to do with or want to acknowledge. _He broke the law, he belongs on the executioner’s block._ Being apologetic did not make one deserving of a pardon, especially considering what he’d done.

He was making his way back to the main keep while ignoring the stares of his own guards and passers-by when he saw a familiar face.

“Ah!” said the Onion Knight, starting forward towards Ned on the path. “There you are.”

 “Are the vultures descending yet?” Ned asked, resigned, then belated realized that maybe he shouldn’t be so flippant about his bannermen, many of whom he respected, in front of a near stranger.

To his relief, Davos chuckled. “We’ve been holding them off as long as we can.” They began walking together back to the keep.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

The former smuggler shrugged. “Sansa mentioned you might have gone down to the crypts. We all decided that you and your Lady wife could use some time.” Davos stopped walking to face Ned, who was also then forced to stop in his tracks. “I’m very sorry,” continued Davos, “Both your sons seemed like they were fine lads.”

Ned had received his fair share of sympathy last night and had grown tired of hearing the word sorry while Bran was in his coma. However, Davos seemed more genuine and empathetic than most. Ned could see from the look in his eyes that he had lost someone, too. “Thank you. And…” he fumbled for words “you have my sympathies as well.”

Davos looked surprised, then smiled sadly. “Loss recognizes loss, it seems.” They began walking again, passing hordes of smallfolk camped within the walls. “To save you the trouble of asking, it was four of my sons. And little Shireen, of course. I loved that little girl more than her parents ever did.” He shook his head. “I’ve still got three boys hiding down South with their mother, but…” he trailed off.

Ned nodded in understanding. He didn’t offer any platitudes, for he had none to give that would feel comforting. Instead, he changed the topic. “Where are their Graces?” It felt so strange to refer to Jon with honorific, especially knowing the fatality rate of monarchs recently.

If Davos was surprised by the abrupt change in topic, he didn’t show it. “If they’re following their usual schedule? Dancing.”

Ned frowned. “Dance-“

His thoughts were brought short by a cry of “ _There_!” from someone else on the path. Ned looked towards the sound to see that most of the men and women outside had halted in their daily activities and were all gazing at the sky expectantly. Then he followed those gazes and saw the reason for all of the fuss. There were two dragons to the east, flying closer every second. They dove and twisted in the air, their cries echoing in the distance.

“Never thought I’d see something like _that,_ ” said Davos, and Ned nodded in silent agreement, as Daenerys’ dragon swooped low over Winterfell with a deafening roar. He’d thought that Rhaegal had been terrifying enough, but the Queen’s dragon was at least half again as large, and he understood with absolute clarity now why Balerion had been called the Black Dread. Drogon was his image reborn.

Jon, on Rhaegal, was quick behind her, and had his dragon roll completely upside down before following the Queen’s. The small-folk made sounds of amazement.

Ned didn’t. “That boy is going to get himself _killed,_ ” he breathed, and Davos laughed.

“I’ll admit that I’m glad none of my boys are pulling stunts like that,” he agreed.

A troublesome thought occurred to Ned. The dragons were darting closer and away from each other, like they were practicing maneuvering. Davos had said ‘dancing’, and while the dragons’ flight looked inherently graceful, it was also an easy assumption that the phrase had come about as an allusion to the Dance of Dragons, the war named for the bloody fights between the beasts.

This wasn’t an afternoon ride; it was battle practice.

Suddenly, the dragons no longer seemed so invincible.

“It must be strange, seeing him like this,” Davos said suddenly.

“That’s an understatement if I ever heard one.”

“Yet when you look at him you can’t help but remember when he was just your small boy.” Davos sighed, reflective. “I remember when my eldest son – Dale was his name – was promoted to captain, and I couldn’t have been prouder. Yet halfway through the ceremony I started thinking about the first time I took him out on the water in my little fishing-boat. I think it’s the privilege of fathers to remember where their sons started.”

Ned watched the dragons dance in the sky, remembering. Davos was right, of course. Jon was a King, he rode one of the most revered creatures in existence, and he commanded thousands of men. But there was a moment, last night when a Lord had been telling him about the Battle of the Bastards, when Ned was struck with the memory of how small Jon had been, probably five or six, when Ned had given him and Robb what he’d later joked was their first lesson in command. To be accurate, he wasn’t really a lesson – Ned had offhandedly told his sons that commanders had to be very loud, so their soldiers could hear their orders.

Then Ned proceeded to immediately regret telling them anything, as it inspired Jon and Robb to “practice” by screaming at each other good-naturedly from the top of their lungs for the next week. A good many people had been unhappy with Ned for his sons’ antics as well, Catelyn among them. Later, he’d laughed and teased both of the boys about it.

Last night, he’d thought about how one of those boys no longer drew breath, and wondered when the remaining boy, who’d once found so much joy playing at soldier, had become so world-weary from the weight of commanding armies.

“As much as I would like to avoid politics all day…” Davos started, and Ned tore his gaze from the sky.

“You’re right,” said Ned, tearing his thoughts away from the past, “Any thoughts to who I should visit first?”

“Lord Stark,” said Davos, “ _you_ do not have to visit anyone. You were just risen from the dead. _They_ will come to you.”

The two of them set up in an audience chamber next several hours were spent catching Ned up to the current military and political situation and were frequently interrupted by visits from various lords and ladies that Ned would have rather avoided, given his level of mental and physical exhaustion. Davos filled him in on the current political situation – Jon’s biggest supporters amongst his nobles were Lord Wyman Manderly (fortunate, given that his was the richest house in the North), young Lady Lyanna of House Mormont, and Lord Tytos Blackwood. The latter two, while outspoken, had were less influential due to being small in size (House Mormont) or of the Riverlands (House Blackwood).

The Wildlings had Jon’s full support, but were still treated as pariahs by most of the North.

The dissident faction was led by Robett Glover and Yohn Royce, both of whom felt that Sansa leadership should have been sufficient to make her Queen of the North, even before Jon’s true parentage was revealed. While Ned did not know Lord Glover well, he’d been somewhat familiar with Yohn Royce in the past and hoped that their connection would make itself useful.

Jon himself arrived sometime in the midst of this conversation, windswept and red-cheeked from the cold. He saw Ned in the room and smiled, his eyes fixed on Ned for perhaps a second too long. It would take him some time to adjust to the reality of having a living father. It made Ned’s heart twist to think of how alone he’d been (how alone he’d always been) but he said nothing. Instead, he gave an understanding smile.

“How was the ride,” asked Ned, like Jon had been exercising his horse instead of a formerly extinct animal.

“Cold, but preferable to what was waiting on the ground,” grumbled Jon.

Ned laughed. “You’ve resigned yourself to a lifetime of this son. Best get used to it.”

The stack of missives Ned had left neglected were seen to now and sent off to now with requests for the respective houses to renew their oaths of fealty. He wished that he could just see them all at once, but if he did he suspected the nobles would all be back later, hounding him for individual conversations and meetings. That, and this might be an easier way to see how the lords reacted to this change of circumstance in the absence of their fellows.

 Davos would remain, both to brief Ned on what had happened while he was “away” and to present a united front. The three of them had agreed that the more Ned was seen working with Jon, the better.

“Would that we could skip all of this and focus on what’s actually important,” grumbled Ned.

“Would that we could,” agreed Davos, “but everyone and their mother is going to want to see you and denying them would be counterproductive, regardless of everything else that needs to be done.”

What followed was a blur of faces Ned had to reacquaint himself with or ones that he’d never seen before – an unfortunate result of the wars. Many of them looked at him with both awe and fear in their eyes, which only made Ned hyper-aware of his resurrection and the scar on his neck.

Jon told him that he’d get used to it. The fact that he could empathize was the opposite of comforting; in fact, it sent an almost-physical stab of pain through his chest.

 A few of the meetings, however, stood out.

Wyman Manderly was as good-humored and loud as ever, taking Ned’s resurrection in stride. The heavy-set man clasped Ned on the back, welcomed him back to the world of the living, and proceeded to heap praises on Jon, Sansa, and Arya.

“Your House has never had a prouder servant than I,” the man boasted, seating himself at one of the chairs – his girth spilled over the edges of it. “If I’d been twenty years younger and a few hundred pounds lighter I would have fought him myself, but look at me, Ned.” He gestured at his own body and gave a booming laugh. “As it was, I sent my son Wendel to lead my forces. He was at the Twins, unfortunately.”

A sudden anger lit in the man’s eyes. Wyman Manderly was often called weak due to his physical appearance, but Ned had enough dealings with him over the years to know that wasn’t remotely true. “They murdered our sons in cold blood Ned, and I never forgot that. The Boltons had nothing form me but lip-service; I my own plans. I would have joined them at the Battle of the Bastards if spies hadn’t shot the bloody raven down.”

“His men showed up two weeks after the battle,” added Jon, “but I have no doubt of your loyalty.”

“I was too late for my own vengeance! But the one you and your cousin dealt out was good enough. Don’t look at me like that! It’s no secret what she did to him. He deserved that and more, if you ask me. He married my cousin Donella near the start of the war. Did you know that? He wanted her late husband’s castle.” Ned indicated that he did not. Manderly turned his head and spat on the ground. “He locked her in a tower and left her to rot. When they finally opened the door she’d starved to death, but not before chewing off her own fingers.”

Ned shuddered and tasted bile, thinking there would be a new addition to his nightmares tonight. Every new thing he learned about Ramsay Bolton made him wish he’d had the chance to feed those hounds himself.

“You raised to fine kings Ned,” said Lord Manderly, after some of his anger had a chance to dissipate. Then he turned to Jon. “I don’t give a damn what other blood you have Your Grace, you put Boltons down like the dogs they were. Lyanna’s blood is Stark enough for me.”

Lady Lyanna Mormont later echoed his words, which as his children’s first and most outspoken supporter, was no surprise. “Bear Island bent the knee to Jon Stark, and we are no oath-breakers.” 

“I have no doubt of that, as the first to offer the Starks aid against the Boltons.”

Lyanna puffed with pride. “I could not turn my back on the house that had kept faith with my family for generations. Bear Island was not devoid of warriors and my King had need of them.” Ned wondered how many had survived the battle.

Lyanna’s youth was difficult to reconcile with her confidence and bearing. She did not speak to him for as long as Manderly had, but the passion in her words was evident. She reminded him very much of her mother. The men and women of Bear Island had always been a proud and fierce sort, and loyal to the death.

Except for one.

Ned had the urge to ask her about Jorah Mormont. However, he did not want to tarnish her first impressions of him by making inquiries about her family’s black sheep. Besides, he’d been informed that the man was part of Daenerys’ Queensguard, and as such no longer had a claim to Bear Island. While he did not trust Ser Jorah with his good-daughter’s safety as of yet, he also did not want the former slaver to rule anywhere.

He similarly refrained from telling the girl that her namesake would have approved of her. There was no telling how she might take being compared to the woman whose actions had inadvertently helped plunge Westeros into war, even if Ned meant it as a compliment.

As the day went on, it became clear that while many were uncomfortable or even perturbed by Ned’s reappearance, his presence probably would help sway those who were opposed to Targaryen rule.

This was most evident with Yohn Royce’s almost cordial visit. It was apparent that he trusted Ned’s judgement, and that if Ned backed his nephew’s claim to the Iron Throne the Eyrie would follow suit.

Throughout it all, Ned was struck with the fact that Jon had gained something else besides scars and world-weariness: confidence. Jon still did not engage in conversation as easily as some of the noble’s Ned had met, it was true, but the man Jon saw now was a far cry from the boy that dreaded meeting nobility due to his bastard status. The change also made him realize just how great a disservice Ned had done his adopted son by allowing that shame to continue for so many years. Why hadn’t he stepped in, done something?

When they weren’t interrupted by noble well-wishers, Davos and Jon told him what preparations had made for the war.

They did not paint a pretty picture.

Ned had never fought an enemy like this before. No-one had, save for the Wildlings, but even they hadn’t faced so many on such a scale. Traditional tactics would not work when the enemies’ numbers were being continually added to. Nor could they intimidate the Night King, harry his supply lines, or hope to wait them out. The most effective weapons against the dead would be the dragons, whose main task would be to meet the Night King himself in battle.

The prospect of that was utterly to Ned. When he’d heard stories of Aegon the Conquerer, he’d always thought that the man had been utterly untouchable on dragon-back. His feelings were quite different when his son was in Aegon’s place and the enemy had a dragon of his own.

Then, assuming that they all survived the Great War, they would have to face the Lannisters, the Greyjoys, and the most disciplined sell-sword company in Essos.

“The fleet Manderly built for Robb is still in White Harbor. We could use it to engage the Greyjoy fleet, if need be,” Jon was saying. He was leaning over several maps of Westeros, hands placed carefully to avoid the markers for the opposing forces. Ned was about to reply when Lord Glover entered.

The man was dressed in his finest clothes and looked more than a little tense. He gave a perfunctory bow to Jon, and before saying anything, knelt down on one knee in front of Ned and begged his lord’s forgiveness for doubting him the prior night, and for not supporting Jon and Sansa during the Battle of the Bastards, explaining that he had “chosen what he had believed was the best path for men and women under his protection”.

“Your sins,” Ned said carefully, “were first and foremost, against my children and your King – not a man who lay in the ground.” Glover almost looked ashamed and glanced uncomfortably at Jon. “You have been pardoned for your actions, and I understand your reasoning.” His tone made it clear that he did not agree with it. Honor demanded that he follow his old oaths to House Stark. Still, he indicated for Glover to rise.

“It is a blessing from the gods that you’ve returned to us,” said Lord Glover. “I will rest easier knowing that you will be guiding the North for years to come.” Again, he glanced at Jon, and then at Davos. He looked like he was keeping a frown off his face. Ned had the impression that he wanted to speak to Ned alone.

“My nephew and I have been discussing the defense of Winterfell,” Ned said. It took an extraordinary amount of effort to say _nephew_ instead of _son_. “There is still much to be done.”

“Of course,” said Glover courteously. “When you have a moment, I would like to invite you to discuss them with me, so I can communicate them to my men.”

“Naturally,” said Ned, quickly tiring of the game they were playing. “House Glover’s men served me well in the Rebellion, I will be glad to fight alongside them once more.”

Glover’s posture was more confident, now. “My House is always proud to serve Lord Eddard Stark and his House, then and now. I made the mistake of turning my back on you and yours once. Never again, my Lord. You will not see your faith in me misplaced.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

There was nothing more to be said, or that Glover wanted to say in the company of Jon and Davos, so the man took his leave.

Davos waited until his footsteps faded away to open his mouth. “He said he was proud to serve House Stark. Not –“

“House Targaryen, I noticed it as well,” said Jon.

This wasn’t over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few things:
> 
> \- I've had the headcanon of Jon and Dany's daily flying sessions being called dancing for a long time, as cheesy as it is, as well as the idea that given how stressful things are the people of Winterfell will usually take a few minutes out of their day to watch the dragons, because they really is something magical (yet inherently terrifying) about them.
> 
> -Jon and Robb climbing various towers in Winterfell and shouting at each other because their father told them that being loud was important is a detail from the books that I, for some reason, have always found amusing. I hope you don't mind me shoe-horning it in.
> 
> -I love Lyanna Mormont with all my heart but for some reason I had trouble thinking up more dialogue for her. 
> 
> Things left on the cutting room floor:  
> \- Sandor Clegane. Again.  
> \- Jorah Mormont. Again.  
> \- The awkward family dinner, again, and while I said it would be that feast Cat was getting ready for last chapter I've changed my mind. Because a)feasts are crowded and noisy and not really conducive to family conversations, as the high table faces outward and people cant face each other and b)I think a private gathering would be more awkward than a public setting. But it WILL happen at some point in the next few chapters
> 
> Next up is a chapter from Jon's POV. See you guys in two weeks.


	7. Fathers and Sons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Ned have a late night heart-to-heart about their fears, ruling, impending fatherhood, and the Knight of the Laughing Tree.

Jon woke up, once again, in a cold sweat, chest heaving, and fighting the urge to be violently ill. It took a moment for reality to reassert itself. The presence of Dany curled up in his arms, her back to his chest, bare skin to bare skin, helped. _She’s fine,_ Jon told himself, pressing closer, _they’re both fine. And so are Arya and Sansa and Bran._ And then, a wild thought, _and Father is alive too._ This last addition didn’t yet seem real, and he still had no idea what to make of it.

He shifted to look around, still fighting lingering panic from his dream. He suspected that he’d managed several hours of sleep, but it would also be several hours before the sun rose, judging by the shadows that still fell over the room and how much the fire had died. Ghost lay curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace, twitching in his sleep. Jon laid back down and sighed.

The nightmares were nothing new. Both he and Dany were plagued with them. The second night they’d spent together on the way to White Harbor, Dany had woken in a similar panic. Jon had responded by wrapping his arms around her and soothing her until she fell asleep again. The next night she had returned the favor when he woke from dreams of suffocation and knives in the dark. At first, he thought he should have been ashamed to have woken her with his dreams but stopped caring once she wrapped her smaller frame around him. Sometimes, all Jon needed to return to sleep was the reassurance that his growing family was safe beside him.

Tonight, though, the panic was slow dissipate, and it made Jon feel restless and uneasy. After several minutes, he rose from the bed, his mouth twitching with a smile when Dany made a noise of discontentment at the loss of his body heat and burrowed deeper underneath the furs. “Jon?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep. This early in the morning, she looked absolutely adorable, all bleary-eyed and her undone hair all mussed from sleep (and him).

Jon winced; he’d hoped that he wouldn’t wake her. “ _Shh,_ ” he whispered, and pressed a lingering kiss to her brow while tucking in the furs more closely around her. “Go back to sleep, love. I just need to get up and clear my head for a bit.”

The look of disgust he received in response almost made him smile in despite of his lingering anxiety. Dany was used to his occasional nighttime walks but clearly still thought he was insane to want to go out in this kind of cold. His wife’s hatred of Northern weather was a source of amusement to him, and he joked that one day he’d wake up to find his bed empty and her curled up asleep on the coals of the fireplace instead.

Jon dressed quickly and slipped out the door, wrapping his cloak tightly around him as he made his way to the godswood. Dany wasn’t wrong, it was bitterly cold, but something ancient and unchanging about the godswood that Jon found comforting when it felt like the walls were closing in. He walked the paths through the overgrown wood to the heart tree, he was startled to see that the braziers that Sansa had insisted be placed there for Bran’s use were already lit – someone else was mad enough to brave the cold in the middle of the night. Once he got closer, his heart almost skipped a beat when he took in the familiar sight of his father praying before the Old Gods.

For a moment, Jon thought he might have wandered from a nightmare into an entirely different dream. It was hard for Jon to accept the reality that his father, was indeed, alive, and thinking about it made his heart do something strange in his chest.

The journey across the Wall to resurrect his father and Lady Stark had been a last-ditch attempt to stave off the end. It was practically a suicide mission, and one that no-one truly thought would succeed. The prospect of resurrecting Lord and Lady Stark had quite simply seemed too good to be true, and thus had nearly been dismissed outright. Especially as Bran’s insane plan was almost ensured to lose at least one of the party being sent forth or worse.

When it had been pointed out that going in to enemy territory could lose them all yet another dragon, Bran hadn’t even _tried_ to make a counterargument. Instead he’d just said _potentially, that isn’t even the worst possible outcome,_ and his brother had paused, considering, before continuing, _If I’m captured and turned, the Night King will have another Prince._

That had led to another hour of arguing, but in the end, they’d had no other choice. They’d made what contingencies they could and prepared for the worst. But Jon also knew that every Stark child in the room was distracted, trying to stamp out the feeling of _hope_ sneaking up on them. Jon kissed his wife, said his goodbyes to her and his unborn child and Sansa, aware that he might be flying to his death. Yet the entire flight he’d caught himself thinking about all of the things he would tell his father, and all of the questions he would ask him, if they _did_ succeed. Chief among them, _Did you ever care?_

Now that his father was back, he found he had so many questions that he didn’t know which ones to ask first, or even how to voice them.

Lady Stark was another matter entirely. Jon was glad that his sibings had a mother again – he thought she had always been a good mother. Just not to him. He didn’t know what to make of her saying that she had been wrong to hate him, a sentence that he’d always hoped she’d say during his entire childhood. The fact that a part of her resented him for surviving instead of Robb and Rickon grated at him, even if he hated himself for the same reason at times. Why couldn’t the woman forgive his very existence?

The remorseful sideways glance he’d caught her shooting him at dinner when she didn’t know he was looking only confused him.

He had no idea how he was supposed to interact around her now. He’d been truthful when he said that he was too tired to hate her. Jon was nearly burnt out. Fighting for his survival, leading the Night’s Watch and then a country, dying and living in turn, had exhausted him, and he simply didn’t have the _energy_ to sustain a grudge the size of Catelny’s. That, and Jon had hated many men that truly deserved it since their parting, and in comparison, Catelyn appeared merely petty.

Ned heard him approach and turned around, distracting him from his thoughts. “Jon?” His father frowned, probably guessing the reason for his late-night excursion. “I wasn’t sure if you kept the Old Gods anymore.”

Jon walked forward and cleared one of the weirwood’s roots of snow before he sat down on it and pulled his cloak tight around him. The nights were getting colder, but at least the trees blocked the wind. “I’m not sure if I do,” said Jon truthfully in answer to Ned’s question, hoping his devout father wouldn’t be too disappointed. “But the godswood is a good place to think.”

“Aye, that it is.” His father frowned, becoming the very picture of fatherly concern probably guessing the reason for Jon’s night-time visit almost instantly. While that made Jon’s heart warm, it also reminded him of the reason he’d woken in a cold sweat, making him tense. His father must have seen his renewed anxiety, because Jon could see that he wanted his son if he wanted to talk about his nightmare, as if Jon was a small child that had crawled into his bed in the middle of the night. Not that he’d ever done so when he was younger – the fact that Lord and Lady Stark shared a bed had deterred him.

However, Jon was no longer a small child, regardless of how he’d acted when he’d all but collapsed sobbing into his adoptive father’s arms two nights ago, and as such, Ned remained silent. Men, soldiers especially, did not ask each other what haunted their dreams. It just wasn’t done.

That didn’t stop him from wishing that his father would ask him anyway. The night air hadn’t cleared the remnants of his dreams or the worries of his waking life from his thoughts as well as much as he hoped it would. Jon was torn between wanting his father to see him as an adult who could manage his own problems without too much worry, as his father did, and dropping his guard and venting all of his troubles to the one man he could trust.

Finally, the latter urge won out, and Jon, feeling awkward as all hell, broached the topic with, “I come out sometimes to clear my head when I can’t sleep. It…happens a lot, now.” Immediately, he felt like an idiot.

Ned sighed like he was relieved that Jon hadn’t kept his emotions all bottled in. “Jon,” he said kindly, “Why do you think I’m here?”

_For the same reason,_ Jon had thought, but it was hard for him to imagine his father having nightmares. He’d always unconsciously thought of his father as invincible, right up until the moment he was beheaded.

“I think that if our memories didn’t haunt us, given what we’ve seen, we wouldn’t be human,” Ned continued, “there’s no shame in in admitting that, and any soldier that tells you otherwise isn’t one you want to be fighting alongside.”

“The memories aren’t half as bad as the thoughts of what _might happen,_ ” Jon replied bitterly. “I can’t stop think about losing them. I’ve barely started a life with Dany, and I just got the girls and Bran back, and with the baby…”

“If it’s any consolation,” said Ned, trying to inject some levity into the conversation, “fatherhood is usually terrifying.”

“Not like this it isn’t!” Jon said, half hysterical, “I can’t stop thinking about what Cersei will try to do to him. The Mountain’s already crushed the heads of two Targaryen children, why not add another to the list!” By now, his father appeared disturbed.  “And that’s if the Night King doesn’t get to us first. I’m not sure whats be worse – the nightmares where he’s killed outright or the ones where the Night King Turns him.

“And then sometimes,” Jon continued, “I’ll think I’ve woken up, and I can _rest,_ because everything is as it should be, where Dany’s further along than she is now, so we’re watching the baby kick against her belly. Until the baby stops moving, and Dany starts to bleed. Enough to know that the baby’s died, and she’s miscarrying.”

“That, at least, is a normal fear to-“

“And then it starts to move again,” Jon finished.

The light from the fire lit Ned’s suddenly pale face, and Jon’s father took a shaky breath. “Is that – can that –“

“There’ve been rumors among the Free Folk,” answered Jon, looking blankly in front of him. “Too many.” _Yes._ Across from him, Ned looked ill.

That particular dream, among others, was what had woken him tonight, and why he’d left the comfort of his bed in an effort to regain sanity instead of talking to Dany like he sometimes did when he woke her.

Jon loved his wife more than anything and the fact that they could be vulnerable with each other was one of the things they had drawn them together. He’d told her about his fears of losing his sisters, his brothers, his friends, and _her,_ but he could not bring himself to trouble her with his nightmares concerning little Eddaerys. She had more than enough reasons to fear losing him, particularly to a miscarriage.

“I keep thinking of losing them,” Jon said into the darkness, “Dany’s going to fight, and even if she didn’t want to she would have to, and I hate it. Arya wants to as well, and I don’t care how deadly she is, she’s still my little sister. Sansa and Bran won’t be in the field, thank the gods for that, but if we fail…” he trailed off and let the silence speak for itself. In the wake of Jon’s outburst, the darkness seemed closer, the wild forest more oppressive, and the weirwood’s eyes appeared to be watching them too keenly. _It’s your imagination,_ Jon told himself, and shivered, listening to the small fire crackle.

After that silence, his father’s voice, though reassuring in tone, almost startled him. “You’re not alone, Jon,” he said, and sighed. “I saw your siblings in my nightmares nearly every night for months when I returned from the Tower. And they resurfaced every time Cat was pregnant.”

Jon looked up in surprise. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what Ned was talking about, until it dawned on him. “You mean…”

“…Rhaenys and Aegon,” said Ned grimly. “I many things during the rebellion that were truly vile, but those bodies – I won’t subject to you the details, but it haunted me even before I went to Dorne. Then Lyanna gave me _you_.” Jon felt uncomfortable, both by the subject and at his mother’s name being mentioned so plainly. “That night there were three small bodies laid before the Iron Throne of my nightmares. Then I went home, and Robb was placed in my arms. After that there were four…”

Jon was struck with the fact that his father was, in fact, human. “They never stop?”

Ned stared into the fire. “They will, for a time, but never forever.”

The realization that his father, the strongest and most honorable man Jon knew, was just as affected by war as he was, that he too was haunted by thoughts of his family dying, should not have been comforting, but the words had the intended affect. He was speaking to someone who understood him.

“I’m just so afraid, and full of doubt,” Jon admitted, “And most of the time I can keep it together, but it never goes away, and I don’t have a damn clue what I’m doing most of the time…”

 “…and you can’t tell anyone,” Ned finished for him, “Because everyone’s looking to you to know what to do, and if you show weakness the whole damn North might come crumbling down.”

“Aye,” said Jon, feeling a weight lift from his chest at the empathy, “that just about sums it up.”

“Your little brother once asked me if a man could still be brave if he was afraid,” Ned said,   
“Right now, I think you would benefit from what I told him then, which is this: that is the only time a man can be brave.”

That helped, actually. Then, he asked, because he’d been wondering ever since he got stuck with position of Lord Commander, “How did you do it?”

“Honestly, Jon, I still don’t quite know. Momentum, at first. I was never supposed to be the Lord of Winterfell. When my father and Brandon died I was too shocked to do anything but react and hope for the best. I didn’t know what I was doing either, son. Jon and Robert helped – I’d lived with Jon for so long that he was as good as family.” Jon nodded, thinking about Davos. “Robert had many failings, but there was a time where he was a good friend.

“I took it one day at a time, and most of the time I was as clueless as you probably feel now. There’s no easy solution to ruling a kingdom, or seven. You simply do what you think is right, what you think is the best for your people, and hope that the decisions you’ve made were the right ones. You have a heavier burden than I did, Jon, but I suspect that’s the best advice I can give you.”

His father was telling him to do his best. While it was somewhat reassuring to know his father had once been nearly as lost as he was, he’d hoped for something more…concrete. Jon had the sudden realization that, even though he hadn’t Bran’s mission to succeed, he’d been subconsciously hoping that his father would come back and somehow just _fix_ everything.

He thought he’d lost that desire long ago when he told Jon why he couldn’t make Jon a Stark, but appartently some childish wishes still remained to him.

It wasn’t going to happen.

“I’ll have you to help me, though,” Jon said, feeling small.

Ned gave him a comforting smile. “Aye, that you do. I should also mention,” he added, “that fatherhood is about the same. Sometimes that job will seem harder than ruling a kingdom, however.”

“I believe it,” Jon said blithely, and his father laughed.

The fact that he was taling to his father about his own child made him feel pensive, though. “I thought that I’d resigned myself to not having children when I swore my vows,” he admitted, “And then again when I fell in love with Daenarys, because, well, Daenerys was barren.”

“Barren?” Ned asked, confused, “But…”

“She was cursed,” Jon explained. “Or at least she thought she was. And I was fine with that, because I love her. When she told me she was pregnant…I admit the timing is horrible, but our son’s existence is a miracle, it really is.” Jon smiled at the memory of that night. They’d been distant since he learned of his true heritage, but with the Long Night approaching he’d mustered his courage to ask her to marry him.

Dany had responded to his proposal with news of her own. Jon had never felt such love for another human being as he did in that moment.

Ned was smiling too. “What will you name it if it’s a girl?”

“Eddaera. Still Ned, for short,” Jon responded. He thought he could see tears welling in his father’s eyes, and he felt a tightening in his own chest. “It won’t be a girl though. Dany and Bran have Dreamed it will be a boy, and their Dreams are never wrong. It wouldn’t have mattered, either way. It hasn’t even been born yet and I already love it more than life itself.”

“You wouldn’t be so terrified if you didn’t,” his father added solemnly.

“What if I mess this up?” Jon said, “I’ve spent so much time fighting that I don’t know if I can raise a child in peace.”

“The fact that you’re asking yourself that question means that you’ll do just fine,” replied Ned, and the confidence in his voice made Jon’s heart warm, even if he harbored his own doubts.

The truth was that Jon didn’t voice was that he wasn’t entirely sure how fathers were supposed to act, on a personal level. As a bastard, Jon’s relationship with his father had been affectionate but also somewhat distant and formal. As a result, some part of him always resented that his siblings were closer to their father than he.

Jon didn’t want that distance between him and his son.

“You’ve been given a heavy burden, Jon,” said his father, “I’m glad that you have love to ease it. Being a father…it changes everything, Jon. A midwife will place a tiny life in your arms and suddenly your life, and it will be your duty and joy to nurture it and watch it grow. You won’t be the same person afterwards. But it’s worth it.” He mournful now, and Jon felt a stab of pain go through his chest for his brothers. _If only I’d been faster, Rickon would be here._

Ned shifted closer to the fire, looking thoughtful. “I should have thought of this yesterday, but I had so much on my mind and it’s been so many years that I forgot,” he said with a sigh. “I still have a chest of some of your mother’s things. I haven’t looked at it in sixteen years. It has a false bottom. Your mother’s marriage cloak is there, and her shield. Rhaegar’s harp, as well – he must have given it to her, for safekeeping. I kept them for you.”

Jon was speechless. The part of hi that had long yearned for something to remember his mother by ached with an emotion he couldn’t quite name. Another part of him was angry. His father had proof, _physical evidence_ that Jon was not a bastard, and while Jon knew his father’s reasons, some part of him was furious that he hadn’t been entrusted with that knowledge.

He had an inkling of why Ned was going to wait until Jon took his vows to tell him of his mother. That suspicion caused him nothing but pain and resentment. Did his father really think that he would have started a rebellion? Jon had been young and foolish, and even now Jon wasn’t sure what he would have done if he had been told, but he would have liked to be trusted with those choices before he through his future away.

And, barring that, Ned could have still told him about his “aunt” Lyanna, so Jon would have felt _some_ connection to her. Yes, it would have been painful to speak of her, just as it was painful for Jon to think of his brothers, but wouldn’t it have been worth it? Jon’s knowledge of Lyanna was limited to what she looked like (beautiful and like Arya) and that she had been a tragic victim of an evil prince, like a character in a story. A story that wasn’t true. He had no idea what the woman, or the girl, was actually like, and he hated that fact.

He didn’t voice this resentment. His father saved his life, and Jon felt that his anger was ungrateful at best. Instead, he simply asked, “Will you tell me about her?”

Ned gave a shaky breath, and nodded, looking at the ground and visibly struggling for words. “The way the singers remember her is a far cry from who she was in life. Arya reminds me much of her. She felt more at home on the back of a horse than in a sewing circle, and never gave up on trying to be included in our sword lessons.”

Jon tried to fit that in with the little he knew of his mother. She still didn’t feel _real;_ he didn’t know enough about her for that yet, but he could start to imagine what it would have been like to be raised by such a woman. He fought to keep the tears from his eyes.

“She was wolf-blooded,” his father continued with a watery laugh. “Her temper was something to behold, even as a child. You’ve inherited it, just a bit. You don’t get _that_ angry often, but when you do…”

_I do stupid things like charging into battle alone,_ thought Jon.

“You look like her too. And thank the gods for that, I don’t know what I would have done if you had silver hair and violet eyes. Try to pass you off a Dayne, perhaps. Thankfully I didn’t need to. You look nothing like Rhaegar.” Then he hesistated. “Although…”

“What?” Jon asked, wary of the answer. It was difficult to think of himself as Rhaegar Targaryen’s son, and he irrationally felt like trying to make that connection would distance himself from his adoptive family.

“I don’t remember much of Rhaegar,” said Ned, “And I only met him once, and then only briefly. But my overall impression of him was that he was rather, well. Brooding.”

_For the gods’ sakes._ “Don’t you fucking start,” warned Jon immediately. His father grinned and gave a genuine laugh at his expense.

Surprisingly, Ned wasn’t the first person to have made that comparison. Dany had thought Jon should something of Rhaegar other than his tarnished reputation, and Jon had reluctantly allowed her to share what little she knew of the man. When she’d laughingly told him that her brother had a very melancholy disposition, they’d both laughed at Jon’s expense, before Daenerys reluctantly continued.

_Ser Barristan told me there was a sense of doom about him,_ she’d said, _He told me that he didn’t think it was in Rhaegar to be happy._

After that the comparison hadn’t seemed so amusing, then or now.

“Bran knew that your parents were in love,” his father said suddenly. “Did he tell you how they met?”

“No,” said Jon, confused, “At Harrenhall, I assumed. Rhaegar crowned her Queen of Love and Beauty”

“We all assumed,” said Ned sadly. “But I never knew _why_ until after you were born.”

Jon hung on to every word. He assumed that Rhaegar had done it for the obvious reason, but his father was implying that there was more to the story than that. Jon didn’t care much about Rhaegar, but his mother was another story.

“Howland Reed and I pieced it together after you were born,” Ned said, “The chain of events began with him. Howland came to the tourney to visit the God’s Eye nearby, and also for the same many young noblemen did – to see the splendor. Unlike many of the other noblemen, however, Howland was a crannogman. He was not rich, nor was he used to the finery around him, and the others knew it.

“Before the opening feast, three squires who served House Haigh, House Blount, and House Frey, cornered Howland and began to beat him. Lyanna happened to be nearby, and seeing what was happening, cried ‘That’s my father’s man you’re beating!’, picked a wooden practice sword up from the ground, and fended off Howland’s attackers. Afterwards, she took him to our tent to treat his wounds.”

Jon had always wanted to believe that his mother was kind and honorable. He hadn’t imagined her to be fierce as well. _Arya would do something like that,_ he thought.

“The next day,” said Ned, “A mystery knight appeared at the tourney, donned in mismatched mail that probably not have been missed by anyone. The device on the knight’s shield was a grinning weirwood, and as such he became known as the Knight of the Laughing Tree. He joined the lists and challenged three knights in the joust – Ser Haigh, Ser Blount, and Ser Frey. The mystery knight defeated all three, to the delight and cheers of the smallfolk. As the winner, it would have been the mystery knight’s right to take the losers’ horses and armor as ransom. Unexpectly, though, the knight only asked that Haigh, Blount, and Frey discipline their squires.”

“Lyanna” breathed Jon, remembering that words _your mother’s maiden cloak and shield._ He’d glossed over that.

“She only told Howland,” said Ned, “None of her siblings recognized her.” There was a hint of regret in his voice.

“She jousted in the tourney? And _won? All three?_ ”  

“Jousting is mostly good horsemanship,” Ned replied with a smile. “And your mother was the finest rider I’ve ever known. I take it you’re impressed?”

“Anyone would be!” Lyanna was a fifteen-year-old girl, almost definitely self-taught, challenging knights that were probably twice her age. He would have never imagined Lyanna were capable of it, or even willing to make the attempt. No-one spoke of her like that. In the songs and tales, she was always the innocent victim, beautiful and innocent but helpless and fearful. Since Jon found out the truth, his main impression was that she must have been particularly foolish.

None of the songs or stories indicated she was the type of person that would enter a tourney in disguise because she wanted to right a wrong. Regardless of the mistakes she made by running away, Jon could be proud of that. _Dany would have liked her,_ he decided, a mournful ache in his chest.

“Aerys was furious, of course,” continued Ned, “His paranoia led him to believe the knight was an assassin, especially when the knight disappeared the next day. Prince Rhaegar appeased him by swearing to find the mystery knight.”

“That’s how they met,” Jon reasoned.

“Me and Howland can only guess, but it seems likely,” said Ned, “Rhaegar presented Aerys with her shield the next day and claimed that was the only thing he found.”

“He lied for her,” Jon breathed. “He must have known.”

“And knowing that she would never receive any recognition for it, he gave what reward he could-“

“-he named her the Queen of Love and Beauty,” finished Jon. It was still a momentously stupid move, as was their decision to elope, but the fact Rhaegar hadn’t been merely enchanted by Lyanna’s appearance changed his opinion of it _immensely._ He could imagine Lyanna frantically shedding pieces of her stolen armor, being caught by a handsome prince, and being relieved when he helped her. He could imagine the prince being impressed by her courage and falling in love.

Jon wasn’t sure what he thought of his parents – they should have known better and their love started a war – but for a moment he wished desperately that he could have at least met them.

“My mother sounds like an amazing woman,” he said, tears welling in his eyes.

“Lyanna would be very proud of you, Jon,” said Ned, “I know I am.”

Jon lost his battle to keep the tears at bay and felt them spill freezing down his cheeks in the chill air. “Sorry,” he choked, wiping his eyes.

“Jon…”

“I just. I wondered for so long if you would be. I thought you wouldn’t be.”

Ned looked stricken. He got up and cleared the snow from the place beside Jon and sat down next to him, putting his arm around Jon’s shoulder. “Jon. Why would you ever think that?”

“I nearly deserted to join Robb,” Jon began.

“You came back,” his father responded.

“I killed Qhorin Halfhand.”

“Under his own orders,” said Ned.

“I broke my vows,” said Jon.

His father sighed. “I’m…disappointed, that you did, I’ll admit.” Jon flinched. The phrase hurt more now than it did seven years ago. “But I’m also glad that you found love in Ygritte. And you found the strength to do your duty, in the end.

And if…if you think that I’m angry because of what happened to Rickon,” he continued hoarsely. “Don’t. You did all you could. You’ve saved _countless_ lives, Jon. You saved the North. You’ve kept the rest of your family safe.”

_I should have done more,_ Jon thought, but the shame he felt whenever thought of his father eased at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is more about the characters than moving the plot forward. Hopefully you guys won't mind. I've had this conversation in the back of my mind for a while now. Jon and Ned are very similar and I wanted to focus on that for the first half of this chapter. I imagine that Jon has been wishing that his father was there to help him for a long time, and now that he is he would want to vent. Secondly, while their relationship is good now, I wanted to use Jon's POV to show that a part of him still harbors resentment at Ned for keeping his parentage a secret. However, Jon being Jon, he thinks he's being ungrateful for having those feelings and tries to ignore them.
> 
> Good luck with that, Jon. You can't do that forever.
> 
> Thirdly, sorry for the zombie baby nightmare? I dunno you guys like three months ago I thought about it and thought it was messed up enough to be both nightmare fuel for Jon and to inflict on you.
> 
> Thirdly, I am super convinced Jon's brooding is due to 50% bastardry and related issues regarding his uprbring and 20% Ned's upbringing, but even Ned wasn't nearly as moody as Jon, so the remaining 30% is Rhaegar's emo genes. The quote from Ser Barristan is from a Dance with Dragons. Rhaegar is, despite the the fact that he's literally dead and has never appeared in the books, one of my favorite characters and I like making connections between him and Jon. 
> 
> Also, my apologies if this chapter has more typos and grammar issues than usual. I forgot to bring my laptop charger on spring break and my laptop would surely die before I finished editing, and as such I'm just posting it now.


	8. Another Fireside Chat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the morning of her daughter's wedding, Catelyn heads to the forges and has a conversation with the groom.

The morning of her daughter’s wedding dawned bright and cold.

Her daughter’s wedding. A week ago, she had been all but sure that Arya was dead. Now she was going to watch her husband give her away. _How quickly my life has changed,_ thought Catelyn.

All of the preparations that could be made, were made. Normally, they would have lasted for weeks and the morning of would have been a chaotic rush, but with the war coming there was little time for a grand wedding. It was not going to be a large feast, given that rationing was in place, but the food would be as rich as could be afforded, and some of Arya’s favorite dishes were going to be prepared. Nothing would be wasted, and the leftovers (if there were any) would be given to the refugees.

Sansa had offered to let her finish Arya’s maiden cloak, and though she was sorely tempted to, she refused. “You’ve proven to be more skilled in embroidery than I” she’d said, “And it means a lot to Arya that it’s coming from you.” The proud smile she got in response warmed her heart.

Everything was ready. The only thing that had to be done was deliver the bride and groom their respective outfits. That, and for Catelyn to settle her own nerves.

Arya’s wedding should have been one of the most joyous occasions of Catelyn’s life. She’d been imagining it for years. It was a sick turn of fate that now that the day had arrived, Catelyn felt little else but a blaring anxiety bordering on outright fear. The opening refrain of the Rains of Castamere haunted both her nightmares and waking thoughts, and the memories only got worse as the hour of Arya’s moment of joy.

She cursed the gods that she was considering the very real possibility that she might skip the feast entirely. She hoped she wouldn’t. Catleyn wanted to be there to celebrate with the rest of her family – that was, after all, one of Arya’s key reasons for choosing to be married. However, it wouldn’t make Arya happy if she had a panic attack halfway through the second course, either.

Catelyn contemplated this on her way to the smithy. After Daenerys’ verbal thrashing several days ago, she had done a lot of introspection. The first thing she had done after the feast that night was go to the makeshift sept the Manderly’s had set up and light a candle in front of the Mother, asking for compassion, and one before the Crone, for wisdom. She prayed long into the night.

In the morning, she’d gotten to thinking.

The first and obvious conclusion was that she had a great deal to atone, especially where Jon was concerned. She’d needlessly punished her an innocent boy for her husband’s sins, even long after she’d forgiven Ned. It shouldn’t have taken such a drastic revelation to realize this flaw in herself. Another regret accompanied this thought: if she had made Jon a Stark like she once promised, perhaps she could have gained a son in everything but blood, and a good-daughter as well.

It was too late for that now.

Regardless, she was determined to turn over a new leaf, even if she wasn’t ready to face him yet. Her emotions were still too tumultuous when it came to him. However, everything pointed to Jon being a good man, and if she told herself that enough and acted like he was, eventually she would start believing it.

This extended to her support regarding the Targaryen regime as well. If Catelyn was to uphold her promise to atone for her actions, and more importantly make sure that all of her family members stayed alive, she would have to back King Jaehaerys and Queen Daenerys fully. She still had concerns about Targaryen rule – the influx of foreigners made her uneasy – but there was nothing for it.

 She would have to be careful. She’d made a few critical political missteps in the past and had no wish to repeat them. Nor did she have much political clout left. As such, she would have to follow Sansa’s lead. Her daughter had become quite the politician.

She just hoped that the Tully’s wouldn’t suffer for her decision. Looking back, the suggestion she’d made to Edmure about installing him as Warden of the West was foolish at best, because of her brother’s own shortcomings, but there was still the problem of the Tully’s lack of control in their own territory.

That was another problem for another time. Currently, she had a different task. The reflecting she’d done on her sins made her realize that Jon was not her only blind spot. This is what had her walking to the smithy this morning.

“Lady Brienne,” she asked her body-guard on the way, “do you think it’s possible for people to change?” Though Brienne’s oath to Catelyn was fulfilled and she was still her daughters’ sworn-shield, Catelyn had welcomed the chance to be close to a friendly face when the other woman offered to rotate her guard duties between Sansa and Catelyn. Brienne vouched that her squire was more than able to protect her daughter if necessary.

Catelyn came to regret accepting quickly, however, when she walked in the Great Hall the next day to find the Hound standing off to Sansa’s side, glaring at anyone who came too close.

Brienne frowned. “You’re melancholy this morning.”

“Dying makes one reflect on one’s sins,” said Catelyn as they turned a corner.

Brienne thought for a moment. “If my opinion is to count, I don’t believe you have more to atone for than most of us.” It was kind of her to say so, but Brienne had only known her for a short time, and not been privy to her at her most unkind. “But to answer your question…I have seen men with far greater sins rise above.”

It might have been comforting if Catelyn didn’t know the particular man Brienne was probably talking about. She trusted that Brienne’s connection to the Kingslayer wouldn’t interfere with her vows to the Starks, but she was concerned for Brienne, all the same. Nothing good could come from trusting Jaime Lannister.

When they got to the smithy, Catelyn bid her to stay outside. Indoors and close to the forge, one could hardly tell it was Winter outside. Her soon to be good-son was hard at work, hammering away at piece of obsidian. Most grooms wouldn’t spend their wedding day performing back-breaking labor, but war stopped for no man, and neither did the dead it seemed. Plus, or at least Catelyn suspected it, the routine of it might have actually relaxed him.

That being said it irked her all the same. Her own mental rebuke came a moment later. _There’s no help for that now,_ she told herself, _this is the man Arya chose and now you have to make your peace with it. That’s why you’re here._ She cleared her throat to get Gendry’s attention.

The young man turned around and looked startled to see her standing there. Unsurprising, as he probably didn’t get many highborn women other than Arya ever visiting him. He was shirtless, and at the moment seemed more perturbed by being so in front of a lady than Catelyn was offended by it. In actuality, Catelyn couldn’t stop the idle thought that a good many eligible young women were going to mourn his being taken off the market.

“Lady Stark,” said Gendry, surprised, and thrust the metal he was forging back into the fire before hurrying to put on a shirt that was no doubt as sweat-stained as he was. There was a very awkward silence. “Um, what can I do for you, my Lady?”

“I’ve come to bring you your clothes for tonight,” said Catelyn, ignoring how Gendry seemed almost nervous in her presence. “The tailors just finished with them last night.” She held out the wrapped package that was her excuse for initiating this conversation. The youngest Baratheon took it after a moments hesitation.

Another awkward silence. Catelyn took a deep breath. “Gendry, it has recently come to my attention that we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

Gendry grimaced. “I would say that’s an understatement, my lady. I- I don’t blame you,” he hurried to say, “I- “

“Stop,” Catelyn interrupted, holding out her hand. “I would say that the fault of me and my circumstances. I was…surprised. The last time I’d seen Arya, the last thing she’d been interested in was romance.”

That seemed to make Gendry loosen up a bit. “You can say that. When I first met she probably would have hit anyone that tried to woo her. Not that I would have tried back then.”

The comment interested Catelyn. “Because?”

Gendry shrugs. “She was only thirteen.” He seemed to struggle for words again. “I always…cared about her, and sometimes, begging your pardon, m’lady, I thought that once she did some growing up she would certainly be something fierce, but at the time?” He shook his head.

“Well, I’m glad for that,” said Catelyn, “You’re right, she would have been too young.” A good many men wouldn’t have cared. Sansa had been too young as well, and hadn’t been nearly as lucky. Grief and guilt roiled in her stomach, so she pushed that thought away and focused on the topic at hand. “I came here to say that,” she cleared her throat and took a deep breath, “While your betrothal to Arya was surprising, at first, I’m glad that she found you, and I want you to know that.”

Gendry looked at with poorly disguised shock.

“You’re not what I imagined for my daughter,” she continued, ignoring Gendry’s wince, “But as my choice in Joffrey for Sansa and one of the Frey boys (not that that was the best of options) for Arya turned out worse than disastrously, I’ve decided that ‘what I imagined’ was not the best for my daughters.”

It had been a bitter pill to swallow. True, if she put her foot down and said that Joffrey would have made a terrible wife for Sansa it might have changed nothing – she was only a woman, and Ned and Robert would have had the final say – but she could have better prepared Sansa for life at court. Arya, on the other hand…most noblemen would have made Arya miserable. She should have seen that and tried to find one that would work _with_ Arya’s personality instead of holding out the hope that Arya would change.

 

“Arya knows her own heart better than I do,” Catelyn continued. Saying it felt strange. Arya had been a child the last time she saw her, and children often did not know what was best for them. Overnight she’d become a young woman, and Catelyn could no longer make decisions for her. “. “As such I must assume that you’re worthy of it. I don’t know you well, Gendry Baratheon, but I trust I’ve been assured that you are a good man, and loyal to a fault. My daughter has suffered enough. I rest easier knowing that you make her happy.”

Gendry looked touched by the comment. Catelyn guessed that he hadn’t expected a warm reception from the nobles, especially from her. Still, there was an uncertain, hesitant look about him, even if he stood a little taller with the compliment. Eventually, he spoke. “Thank you, m’lady,” he said, “That’s really I want. To make her happy, I mean,” and the honesty in his voice warmed Catelyn’s weary heart.” He looked around at the workshop hesitantly. “I know that I don’t have much to give her…”

The boy really was insecure, wasn’t he? Catelyn felt herself getting irritated – Gendry’s discomfort around nobles did not endear him to her. And the reminder of his background wasn’t entirely welcome, either. An instant later, she forced the feeling away. _You’re returning to old habits,_ she rebuked herself. _Gods,_ this wasn’t going to be easy.

But she didn’t want to be the kind of woman that rejected her new good-son. Arya didn’t deserve that.

So she pushed the irritation down, and instead dryly said, “I wouldn’t call Storm’s End nothing.”

Gendry winced. “I’m no Lord.”

Standing amongst the weapons he’d forged with his own hands, he certainly didn’t look like one. The new Lord Baratheon looked more at home in the smithy than amongst the nobles at the feast two nights ago.

That was going to have to change.

Which led her to the other reason she’d come here.

“You are now, like it or not,” Catelyn advised. From the expression on Gendry’s face, he obviously didn’t agree with her. Before he said something else self-depreciating or agreed merely out of courtesy, she added, “and you’re a blacksmith.”

Gendry leaned back on one of the workbenches. “I’m not sure it’s possible to be both,” he said.

“Neither am I, but you must find a way to reconcile the two.” Catelyn had thought long and hard about this. “You’re something new. Ser Davos might be one of the first, I think. He’s low born, a criminal. Every noble that meets him can probably tell his common birth upon meeting him from his accent alone.” Gendry was becoming stern-faced. Were they close? “And he’s the Hand of the King. If the Targaryen’s win this war one of the most influential men in the world.”

They wouldn’t be the first, either. All of the influential nobles in King’s Landing would have gone to attend Cersei’s trial. Between that and the war, cadet branches of the noble houses would have to step up, going from seeing over smaller holdings to more significant ones.

Understanding was slow to dawn on Gendry’s face. “They’re breaking the wheel,” he said, in quiet realization.

“Breaking the wheel?”

“Queen Daenerys has this idea. Jon told me about it,” Gendry was quick to explain, not realizing that the mention of Jon would immediately darken her mood, “The Queen thinks that power is like a wheel that keeps turning. Her family was on top, and then, King R- my Father was on top, and then it turned and now we have the Lannisters. While everyone underneath, all of the noble families not in favor and all of the commoners that get mixed up in it, they all get crushed. So she thinks the only way to make things better for everyone –“

“- Is to break the wheel,” finished Catelyn for him, understanding. “Just make a new system entirely.”

Her first thought was that it was a preposterous idea. Alarming, even. The implications it could have for her family, for the Tully’s, were potentially disastrous. And what about the noble families, who’d spent their entire lives caring for their people and serving their lords well? Power was their birthright.

And yet, part of her also thought, _My husband and my father were good Lords. My son was a good King. And we were crushed._

But _surely_ the whole system wasn’t broken. Dynasties always rose and fell. That was the way it had always been. It was the way it’d always be.

Wouldn’t it?

It wasn’t important right now, she decided. “Regardless,” she said, “You will have to become more comfortable with the nobility. You’re one of them now. You can give Storm’s End a steward, if you don’t wish to rule yourself, and your maester will help, but you will have to learn the basics of what will be expected for you.” Gendry was frowning, not looking forward to this prospect. “Did Master Mott teach you your letters?”

Gendry drew himself up straighter. “Of course,” he said defensively. Commoners who could read were always very proud of it. “And sums! He’s a very wealthy man; he made sure his apprentices could read the commissions we were sent and keep track of our own coin.”

“Good,” said Catelyn, pleased by the response. “You would not believe how many nobles and nights don’t bother to learn and rely solely on their maesters.” She felt her mouth twist in a frown of disapproval. “You’ll have a head start on them, at least. The war gives you time – no-one will care if you don’t know for now, but afterwards, well. You will have to be introduced to the court at some point.”

Gendry looked daunted. “You really think that’s necessary?”

“It would make your life much easier,” Catelyn answered. He would at least have to know what the houses that were pledged to the Baratheons, proper court etiquette, that sort of thing. Otherwise they would be throwing him into the lion’s den.

Arya would help, but she never had much patience for that sort of thing. Catelyn wasn’t the best teacher either – she already intimidated the boy and would likely expect to much of him, even she saw that. She would try to recruit Davos, he’d gone through it himself, but he would most likely be too busy with the King’s duties. Catelyn was going to have to find someone else to help. Otherwise, she would have her hands full.

“Don’t concern yourself with it now,” she reassured him, “It’s a long way off, and you’re getting married today, after all.” She smiled. Again, she prayed that she be able to make it through the feast. Speaking of which… “I should be off to the kitchens myself, to see how they’re getting on,” she said. For any other feast she wouldn’t have bothered, but today was special. “I won’t take up much more of your time.”

The reminder had the intended effect. Gendry smiled nervously, happy that was going to have a wife before the night was through but still feeling of the normal pre-wedding anxiety that every new bride and groom experienced. “Thank you, my lady.”

Catelyn began to leave. A thought occurred to her, and she paused by the door. “Gendry,” she called, turning around. “We’re going to be family very soon. You can call me Catelyn.”

Gendry’s smile grew a little wider. “Thank you, m – Catelyn. Thank you, Catelyn.” And he watched as she nodded with a pleased smile back at him and left the room.

Brienne was waiting for her outside and took up a position besides her as they walked towards the kitchens. And because she was Catelyn’s friend as well as her sworn shield, she asked, “Well?”

“That went relatively well,” said Catelyn, “All things considered, I actually think I could grow to like him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of these days I won't continuously disappoint you all by going weeks between updates, I swear. Everyone will be amazed when it happens.
> 
> In the next chapter: a wedding


End file.
